Need

SACOMA, the Seeker for this Innocentive Challenge, in partnership with the University of East London (UEL), is seeking innovations, proposals, and recommendations to help define a human-centered, low-carbon food system platform that could connect diverse stakeholders across the global food value chain.

Food systems today face interconnected challenges: rising diet-related health issues, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, fragmented supply chains, and inequitable value distribution between producers and consumers. Addressing these challenges requires a system-level, collaborative approach that integrates technology, data, and human-centered design.

SACOMA Foods and Global Business Innovation, together with UEL, is using open innovation to explore a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that enables co-creation between farmers, food producers, manufacturers, researchers, policymakers, and consumers. This platform would support the development of healthier, low-carbon food products, while enabling data sharing, lifecycle assessment (LCA), and more transparent collaboration across the value chain.

The objective of this Challenge is to identify a practical and scalable starting point for such a platform by defining one clear collaboration use case, supported by a high-level system concept and/or relevant existing solutions. Solvers should demonstrate how collaboration would work in practice, including stakeholder interaction, workflow, and potential pathways for implementation. At this stage, SACOMA and UEL are not seeking fully integrated or end-to-end software solutions, but rather focused, actionable concepts that can be developed further.

Prize/IP

An award pool of up to £1,000 is available for this Challenge. SACOMA reserves the right to award one or multiple submissions based on quality and alignment with the Challenge requirements, with additional recognition for strong solutions. Selected teams may also be invited to participate in follow-on discussions, pilot initiatives, or future collaboration opportunities with SACOMA and UEL. Submissions should rely only on non-confidential or publicly available information, with further engagement to follow where relevant.

Your IP Rights are protected in this Prize Challenge; SACOMA must pay you an award to obtain them.

The best solution has the opportunity to win the award of £1,000 for meeting enough of the must-have solution requirements. This Challenge requires a written proposal to be submitted, and Awards will be contingent upon the theoretical evaluation of your proposal by SACOMA against the Solution Requirements. To receive an Award, Solvers are required to grant non-exclusive license rights to the Intellectual Property (IP) in their proposed solution. Solvers will retain all rights to any proposal not Awarded.

Solvers may:

• Submit ideas of their own
• Submit third-party information that they have the right to use and convey to SACOMA this right with the right to use and develop.
• Submit information considered in the public domain without limitations on use.

Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (US Eastern Time) on XYZ, 2026.

Please review the later Participation Guidance section before submitting a proposal.

- Login or register your interest to start solving! -

Seeker & Eligibility

SACOMA Foods and Global Business Innovation is an award-winning food company registered in the UK, with operations in Africa, Europe and Asia. SACOMA has pioneered food solutions with collaborative tools and co-creation methodologies aimed at establishing low-carbon food supply chain, prioritizing the health and wellbeing of people and of the environment.

The University of East London (UEL) contributes student knowledge, academic expertise, research capabilities, and its ‘living lab’ environment to support experimentation, validation, and stakeholder engagement. UEL academic staff, researchers, and students are encouraged to participate, including through multidisciplinary teams drawn from different disciplines where appropriate.

This Challenge is open to all students, individuals without affiliation, startups, research groups, SMEs, and established organizations globally.

Challenge

Background

Global food systems are responsible for approximately a third of greenhouse gas emissions, driven by production, processing, transportation, and waste. At the same time, unhealthy diets also contribute significantly to rising rates of obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases.

In the UK, for instance, poor diet is a major public health concern, contributing to preventable illness and economic burden. Diet-related risks (including high consumption of processed foods and low intake of nutrient-rich alternatives) are linked to negative health outcomes.

The global food supply chain is highly-complex and fragmented, spanning farm-to-fork processes that include, but are not limited to: production, manufacturing, distribution, retail, and waste management. Inefficiencies across this chain contribute to both environmental degradation and economic inequality.

The food supply chain is the entire network of activities, resources, and stakeholders involved in getting food from production to consumption, with an indicative example of the chain below:

Food waste alone represents a major inefficiency, with significant portions of produced food never reaching consumers. Emerging technologies such as bio-conversion, waste-to-energy systems, and alternative protein production are beginning to address these issues, but they remain poorly integrated into mainstream systems. Existing solutions tend to operate in silos, focused on specific segments such as agriculture, manufacturing, retail, or sustainability metrics, without providing a unified framework for collaboration, data sharing, or co-creation.

There is also a growing imbalance in global resource distribution. Developing regions often have access to natural agricultural resources, while developed economies dominate technology, infrastructure, and market access. This imbalance is also reflected between urban and regional areas: it is estimated that between 70–80% of global food production is consumed in cities. As urbanisation continues and demand increases, there is a growing need for food system solutions that improve coordination, reduce waste, and lower emissions across both rural and urban contexts.

Bridging these divides—between regions and between rural and urban systems—presents an opportunity to create more equitable, efficient, and sustainable food systems. The strategic direction explored through this Challenge may enable food producers and other stakeholders to become active innovators, transforming their ideas into structured, value-generating assets while accelerating the development of low-carbon food solutions.

The Challenge

With this Challenge, SACOMA and the University of East London (UEL) are seeking to define a practical starting point for a collaborative digital platform by focusing on a minimum viable concept rather than a fully integrated system.

At its core, the platform is intended to function as a “collaborative infrastructure”: a digital environment where stakeholders can jointly develop, evaluate, and scale low-carbon food solutions. A key priority is enabling co-creation, where multiple stakeholders, including farmers, food producers, manufacturers, researchers, and policymakers, can contribute knowledge, data, and ideas toward shared outcomes.

The initial submission should therefore focus on one clearly defined collaboration use case. This use case should demonstrate how stakeholders interact, how collaboration is structured through workflows or processes, how value is created or exchanged, and how the concept could be supported either by a high-level system design or by integrating an existing solution or platform.

The concept should allow for the integration of diverse stakeholder groups and user roles, structured collaboration and decision-making processes, and mechanisms for fair value creation, including consideration of payments and intellectual property. While broader capabilities such as partner discovery or open innovation ecosystems may be relevant, these should be positioned as later-stage developments rather than core requirements of the initial concept.

The system should also be designed with the ability to integrate additional data over time as usage expands. Potential data sources may include lifecycle assessment (LCA) data, carbon tracking and emissions metrics, supply chain and production data, and consumer insights. However, Solvers are not expected to fully implement these capabilities. Instead, they should propose a scalable and modular concept that allows such data streams to be incorporated in future development phases.

Intellectual property (IP) generation and management is also an important consideration. The platform should, in principle, enable food producers and innovators, particularly smaller or underrepresented actors, to capture and structure their knowledge, allowing them to participate in collaborative innovation while protecting their contributions.

Where relevant, Solvers may indicate how their concept could support food product innovation, reformulation, carbon reduction, or data-driven tools. However, these elements should not distract from the core objective of defining a clear and practical collaboration use case.

A “living lab” approach is central to this vision, bringing stakeholders together in real or virtual environments to test, validate, and refine solutions collaboratively.

Given the complexity of a full system, Solvers are encouraged to structure their proposal around a focused and phased approach. This includes prioritising one core use case, outlining how collaboration would function, presenting a high-level concept or framework, and indicating how the solution could evolve over time through modular development and integration of additional capabilities.

Successful proposals may include platform concepts, collaboration frameworks, system maps, or early-stage prototypes or visual models that help illustrate how the solution would function in practice.

The ultimate goal of this Challenge is to identify practical starting points and potential partners who can support SACOMA and UEL in building the foundation of a future collaborative platform, which can be expanded over time to incorporate additional capabilities such as carbon tracking, AI, IP management, and supply chain optimisation.

Solution Requirements

Submissions should clearly articulate and demonstrate how the proposed solution contributes to the design of a collaborative, scalable platform for low-carbon food systems, with a primary focus on defining a single, high-value use case.

Any successful solution to the Challenge must meet the following must-have requirements:

1. A clearly defined minimum viable concept for a collaborative digital platform, focused on practical implementation rather than full system design
2. At least one clearly scoped and priority use case, demonstrating how collaboration would function in practice (e.g., co-creation of food products, stakeholder collaboration workflows, data sharing, or IP/value exchange)
3. Clear consideration of multi-stakeholder needs, including (but not limited to) farmers, producers, manufacturers, researchers, policymakers, and consumers
4. A proposed architecture, framework, or system concept, presented at a high level, showing how the use case could be supported digitally (more mature concepts or early MVP designs are also welcome)
5. A forward-looking integration approach, outlining how elements such as lifecycle assessment (LCA), carbon tracking, data pipelines, or IP/value mechanisms could be incorporated over time (these are not required to be fully developed at this stage)

Additionally, SACOMA is interested in solutions that demonstrate the following nice-to-have criteria:

1. Consideration of advanced capabilities such as AI, blockchain, or machine learning, presented as future modules or extensions where relevant
2. Awareness of or potential alignment with wider systems or environments (e.g., smart cities, regional food systems, or existing innovation ecosystems)
3. A clear scaling pathway, showing how the concept could evolve from a minimum viable concept into a broader, multi-stakeholder platform over time

Solutions with Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) 2–6 are invited.

This Prize Challenge has the following features:

1. Your IP Rights are protected in this Prize Challenge; SACOMA must pay you an award to obtain them.
2. The best solution has the opportunity to win the award of £1,000 for meeting enough of the must-have solution requirements. This Challenge requires a written proposal to be submitted, and award will be contingent upon the theoretical evaluation of submissions by SACOMA against the stated criteria.
3. To receive an Award, Solvers are required to grant non-exclusive license rights to the Intellectual Property (IP) in their proposed solution. Solvers will retain all rights to any proposal not Awarded, and there is no assignment.
4. SACOMA and the University of East London (UEL) may subsequently engage selected Solvers in further discussions, including potential collaboration or partnership, where additional IP arrangements may be considered.
5. Solvers may:

• Submit ideas of their own
• Submit third-party information that they have the right to use and convey to SACOMA with the right to use and develop derivative works
• Submit information considered to be in the public domain without limitations

6. SACOMA may also issue “Honourable Mention” recognitions for notable submissions that are not selected for monetary awards.

Your Submission

Please login and register your interest, to complete the submission form.

The submitted proposals must be written in English and can include:

1. Participation type – you will first be asked to inform us how you are participating in this challenge, as a Solver (Individual) or Solver (Organization).

2. Solution Stage – the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of your proposal.

3. Solution Overview - detail the features of your proposal and how they address the SOLUTION REQUIREMENTS (, there is space to add more in the summary field, and attach supporting data, diagrams, etc).

4. Experience - Expertise, use cases and skills you or your organization have in relation to your proposed solution.

5. Solution Risks & Uncertainties - outline any risks or uncertainties you see with your solution and describe how you would plan to address them.

6. Timeline, capability and costs - describe what you think is required to deliver the solution, estimated time and cost.

7. Online References - provide links to any publications, articles or press releases of relevance.

8. Attachments – links, further documentation, or imagery that helps describe and enhance your minimum viable concept solution.

Participation Guidance

1. Submission Close Date: Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (US Eastern Time) on MONTH DAY, 2026.

2. Late submissions: Late submissions will not be considered.

3. Multiple submissions, 3 Maximum: In case of multiple submissions by the same Solver, only 3 submissions – the final 3 submitted – will be considered. Any other submissions will be deleted prior to evaluation.

4. Submission form and attachments: Your submission will be evaluated by the evaluation team first reviewing the information and content you have submitted at the submission form, with attachments used as additional context to your form submission. Submissions relying solely on attachments will receive less attention from the evaluation team.

5. Evaluation notification steps: After the Challenge submission close date, SACOMA and UEL will review and select the winning ideas/solutions according to the timeline in the Challenge header. Everyone who submits a proposal will be notified about the status of their submissions.

6. Use of AI: Please note that any submissions produced solely with generative AI are not of interest.

7. Learn more: Find out more about participation in Innocentive Challenges.