Can you make circular packaging from your own residual product? And how can you roast coffee using less natural gas? Kikkoman in Sappemeer and 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. Two Japanese companies with operations in the northern Netherlands - soy sauce brand Kikkoman and coffee company UCC - shared their challenges 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 Kikkoman and UCC had selected to work with. What are these challenges and who are the teams working on them?
Kikkoman and Buyo Plastics
Soy cake. That's how the residual product from the production of soy sauce is called. Perfectly usable as a basis for animal feed. But how nice would it be to use it to package Kikkoman's own soy sauce? That would upgrade the by-product and save use of plastic for bottles. It would also fit perfectly with the multinational's efforts to operate as circularly and sustainably as possible. But how?
Vietnam-based company Buyo has an answer to that. Daniël Verlinde, Manager Europe of Buyo Plastics, managed to convince the management of Kikkoman's production facility in Europe with a short pitch in which he made it clear that the residue from soy sauce production is an excellent basis for biocomposite. And from that, all kinds of materials can be made for the packaging of their soy sauce products. Verlinde even brought a bottle made from another biowaste with Kikkoman's logo on it as a visualization of what the final product of their collaboration could be.
'This is a trial, I printed out the label myself. But you see it can be done.' His practical example and hands-on approach gave Kikkoman the confidence to choose Buyo over the other problem solvers competing: Greencovery and TripleW.
UNC and DNV/Summit
In addition to Kikkoman and Buyo, coffee giant UCC, with its facility in Bolsward, also found a match with a solution presented in a joint pitch by Norwegian multinational DNV, which also has a facility 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, Kikkoman and Buyo and UCC and DNV/Summit signed a symbolic letter of intent to further explore opportunities for cooperation in a formal process in the coming months. It is hoped that 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 two challenge holders and problem solvers 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
Kikkoman and Buyo, UCC and DNV/Summit. They could just be collaborations that lead 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.