Cornell Students Challenged to Find Next Hot…

In the packaged food industry, developing an innovative new product can take years. However, what happens when you add a time constraint of 36 hours?

That’s the question posed by the Cornell Food Hackathon, an annual product development competition co-sponsored by the National Honey Board. Starting on Friday afternoon, 150 students formed teams, ideated new products, worked with food industry mentors, and delivered a four-minute pitch of their innovative new products on Sunday morning.

Needless to say, not the typical weekend for your typical college student, but that’s what makes this event so unique. It forces students to think about product development on an accelerated schedule, where they are working within a team environment, often with people they’ve never met.

The results? Impressive.

This was our third year of sponsoring the Cornell Food Hackathon, and we walked away from a busy weekend tired and inspired. We saw countless products that, with a bit more work, are market-ready and have the chance to disrupt both the honey industry and the food industry.

As part of the Hackathon, students have to choose one of four challenges to tackle. This year’s honey innovation challenge tasked students with developing the next buzz-worthy honey product by innovating in flavor infusions, packaging/formats, functional benefits, or cultural applications.

Each of the honey innovation pitches was impressive, but these four stood out for their potential to change the landscape of the honey or food industry.

• Team Hive Homies took home the award for Most Innovative Use of Honey for their concept: Beevive. It’s a line of three functional beverage shots that uses honey as a natural delivery system for these functional benefits:
  • Bee Hot: Hot honey with capsaicin for muscle recovery
  • Bee Bright: Honey with ginger and citrus for immunity and alertness
  • Bee Awake: Honey with green tea for endurance and alertness
• Team Level Bee developed a natural honey energy chew with a liquid center made with honey. The team designed the product to mimic the popular Gushers candy.
• Team Chew Crew: Created a single-serve honey pod encapsulated by an edible film that reduced food and packaging waste, as well as improved convenience.
• Team Red 40: Developed a flaked (think Maldon sea salt), finishing honey designed to top everything from frozen desserts to popcorn.

Congratulations to these teams and all the students who spent their weekend thinking about honey and how to bring true innovation to the food industry.