The Hult Prize is an annual global competition that challenges students to solve a pressing social issue through social entrepreneurship ventures. The competition is a partnership between Hult International Business School and the United Nations and is the world’s largest student competition. This year’s theme was “Food for good: Transforming food into a vehicle for change” and had students tackle urgent issues in the food industry such as food waste, food packaging, alternative sources of proteins and food safety.

This year, 27 teams of HKUST students entered the competition. Before the first round of submission, student teams were able to gain precious insight from the Panel Discussion on the themes “Insights into the future of the food industry” and “Entrepreneurship Journeys in the Food Industry”. Judges Heidi Yu Spurrell, CEO of Food Made Good Hong Kong, and Natalie Lung, the Food Technology Program Manager at the accelerator Brinc, answered the teams’ questions and shared their rich experience in the food industry, helping teams reevaluate their ideas.

In addition to Heidi and Natalie, the judging panel included Donny Siu, Acting Director of the HKUST Entrepreneurship Center, HKUST Marketing Professor Coral Puig Garrigo with great expertise on brand activism, and experienced food sustainability experts Peggy Chan (Founder of Grassroots Initiatives) and Mr Matt Abergel, the Executive Chef of Yardbird HK and RONIN, also joined our five main judges during the final competition as a guest judge.

After two rounds of screening, six finalist teams were selected to participate in the final competition on 13th Dec 2020.

The up-cycling start-up Breer won the first place in the competition, persuading judges with their sustainable beer brand ‘Responsibly’, which converts bread waste to brew premium craft beer. The team will advance to the Hult Prize +25 Regional Summits, competing with winners of Hult Prize competitions from universities around the world.

The first runner up team by a small margin was Soka, proposing okara-based products such as granola and okara flour to provide healthier, gluten-free, sustainable and waste-reducing alternatives to wheat-flour. At third place was Bug Bites, which aims to introduce insect-meat dumplings for more sustainable protein sources.

The three other teams – Sust in, Insect Inc and Frescue – also presented very well-researched and relevant social entrepreneurship ventures and were encouraged to continue developing their ideas by judges and the HKUST Entrepreneurship Centre.

The HKUST Hult Prize team is continuously reaching out to companies such as Green Commons, Starbucks, DBS and the like for possible talks, company tours, networking events and other workshops to assist all teams in nurturing their ideas further and developing their professional network.

“The HKUST Hult Prize provided a valuable platform for students who are passionate in social entrepreneurship that brings positive values to the society and the people. Many of the ideas and teams have great potential to further develop and we are prepared to offer support and to facilitate their implementation.” said Donny Siu.

The event was a success and shows a promising future and growth within HKUST. Although the OnCampus competition is over, the Hult Prize will keep working with finalist teams over the year in order to prepare Breer for the Regional Summits and provide more opportunities for the other finalist teams.