Can you make circular packaging from your own residual product? And how can you roast coffee using less natural gas? UCC in Bolsward could use some help finding the answer. So they shared their issue with the world in the form of the TopDutch Innovation Challenge.
The TopDutch Innovation Challenge is an exercise in what is known as “challenge-based innovation.” The idea is to connect a large company with a vision for an innovation that makes its processes more sustainable to a party that has the expertise to make it a reality.
Once a match is made, the two parties agree to put their heads together and work together for a longer period of time to solve this sustainability challenge. NOM adds its expertise to scout potential solvers, provide access to its network and support through its business developers and project managers. Together, the three parties bring all the ingredients needed to develop exciting new sustainable innovations right here in the North.
This round of the TopDutch Innovation Challenge kicked off in the summer of 2024. A Japanese company with a branch in the Northern Netherlands—the coffee company UCC—shared its challenge through TopDutch’s channels and the NOM network. Potential solutions came from all over the world and were narrowed down to a shortlist of 2–3 solution providers per challenge. The shortlisted companies then pitched their plans to create a sustainable solution during a matchmaking event in the northern Netherlands. It was there that UCC ultimately announced which problem-solvers it had selected to collaborate with. What is this challenge, and who are the teams taking it on?
UNC and DNV/Summit
Coffee giant UCC, with its branch in Bolsward, found a match with a solution presented in a joint pitch by Norwegian multinational DNV, which also has a branch in the Northern Netherlands, and Summit Engineering from Eelde.
UCC wants to use less natural gas in roasting coffee beans and is thinking of hydrogen as an alternative. DNV knows how this can be realized, says Johan Knijp, who heads DNV's technology center in Groningen. Together with Summit Engineering, he came up with a solution. 'We think UCC is best off with a flexible concept, where step by step less gas and more hydrogen can be used.' For UCC management, that proposal was just preferred over the interesting pitch from Equans, which came up with a hybrid system using hydrogen and electricity.
To the world stage
During the match event, UCC and DNV/Summit signed a symbolic letter of intent to further explore opportunities for cooperation in a formal process in the coming months. Hopefully this will form the basis for a far-reaching cooperation and since then the parties have been in regular talks with each other. In any case, at the invitation of NOM, the challenge holder and problem solver will present their progress at the World Expo in Japan, one year after the launch of the Innovation Challenge.
The World Expo will be held in Osaka in April 2025. More than one hundred and fifty countries will show their best innovations there, including the Netherlands. Under the heading "common ground," Japanese-Dutch collaborations will be given the stage. That was the reason for TopDutch to focus this Innovation Challenge on Japanese companies in the Northern Netherlands. 'The companies participating in this challenge will show their progress in Osaka in the pavilion of the Netherlands,' explains Fleur Mulder. She is program manager of this and other Innovation Challenges.
Renewed mindset
UCC and DNV/Summit. This could very well be a collaboration that leads to new innovations. Remco van Leeuwen knows a thing or two about that. A year ago, as project manager at New Born Rubber, he won a similar pitch to start working with another Japanese company, Teijin. “We’re still working together. You can see that there are opportunities—in our case, opportunities to make conveyor belts in mines more sustainable. By researching this openly and collaboratively, we’ve made significant progress.”
Ben Freyee of BASF can only agree. The Swiss company, which has a branch in Heerenveen, participated in the Sustainable Industry Challenge a year ago. It was looking for ways to reuse production waste and partnered with two startups— Aquacycl and Treatech—to find solutions. Freyee: “It was exciting to start thinking in a completely different way. But our mindset has truly changed, and our focus remains firmly on innovation. That’s what a challenge like this does.”
ChallengeBase
Do you have a problem that you think can be solved through challenge-based innovation? Following the successes of the TopDutch Innovation Challenge and the Sustainable Industry Challenge, NOM is continuing its work on challenge-based innovation through its own organization, ChallengeBase, in collaboration with Founded. They are open to any company or (semi-)governmental organization in the northern Netherlands with an innovation challenge in the areas of sustainability, circularity, digitization, or health. They then search globally for solutions and support the innovation to implement it in the Northern Netherlands.