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 so-called challenge-based innovation. The idea is to pair a large company with a vision for an innovation that will make their processes more sustainable with a party that has the expertise to make it happen.
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. One Japanese company with a branch in the Northern Netherlands - coffee company UCC - shared their challenge through TopDutch channels and NOM's 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 plan to create the sustainable solution during a match event in the Northern Netherlands. This is also where it was finally announced which solution providers UCC had selected to work with. What is this challenge and who are the teams working on it?
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. It could just be a collaboration that leads to new innovations. Remco van Leeuwen can talk about that. He won a similar pitch a year ago as project manager of New Born Rubber to get started with another Japanese company, Teijin. 'We are still working together. You see there are opportunities, in our case opportunities to make conveyor belts in mines more sustainable. By researching it together with an open mind, we have made considerable strides.'
Ben Freyee of BASF can only agree. The Swiss company based in Heerenveen participated in the Sustainable Industry Challenge a year ago. It was looking for ways to reuse residual waste from production and partnered with two startups to find answers, Aquacycl and Treatech. Freyee: "It was exciting to start thinking very differently. But our mindset has really changed and our focus is permanently 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 to work on challenge-based innovation with its own organization, ChallengeBase, in partnership with Founded. They are open to any northern company or (semi-)government organization with an innovation question in the field of sustainability, circularity, digitalization or health. And then go global to find solutions and support the innovation to realize it in the Northern Netherlands.