MBold, an initiative of Greater MSP, announced this week the specific challenges several of Minnesota's agriculture and food businesses want innovative answers to at the third annual Bold Open Reverse Pitch on July 21.
Innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers and businesses from around the world are invited to pitch their solutions to 10 Minnesota companies or organizations (Cargill, Compeer Financial, Hormel Foods, Land O’Lakes, MN Beef Council & MN Cattlemen’s Association, Midwest Dairy, Field Theory, SunOpta, MBOLD and Agricultural Utilization Research Institute) at the virtual event.
Register for the conference here
“Minnesota’s global leaders in food and agriculture are eager to accelerate innovation to address challenges facing our industry,” said Jeff Harmening, chairman and CEO of General Mills and MBOLD co-chair. “MBOLD is thrilled to partner in the Bold Open again this year to help Minnesota companies find new ideas and collaborations with innovators and entrepreneurs from around the world that will help this year’s reverse pitch providers meet their innovation challenges for new protein products and more sustainable solutions.”
Here's the full list of challenges (and their sponsor), which are focused on enhancing animal and plant proteins and their sustainability:
- Reduce feed costs through utilization of non-traditional protein sources (Hormel Foods)
- Enteric methane reduction (Land O'Lakes)
- Effective communication on “Why Dairy” messaging for millennial parents and Gen Z consumers (Midwest Dairy)
- New uses for oat byproducts (SunOpta Inc.)
- Novel value chain approaches to overcome local meat processing bottlenecks (AURI)
- Developing protein products without the use of traditional solvents (Field Theory)
- Spoilage sensing and detection for protein products (Cargill)
- Beef production sustainability resource framework (Minnesota State Cattlemen’s Association and Minnesota Beef Council)
- Market development pathways for winter camelina (MBOLD)
- Cost-effective operational scaling solutions that speed small and medium-sized protein producers through business growth (Compeer Financial)
