ContentsThe University for World-Class Professionals

Our future food

Food sustainability competition, IndiaThursday 20 November 2015 12.00pm

Venue Atrium, MMU, Hollings Faculty, Righton Building, Cavendish Street, Manchester M15 6BG

About usManchester Metropolitan University is a leading provider of training and research for the global food industry. We run degree programmes at undergraduate, postgraduate and research levels, aimed at transforming students into food industry professionals.

We have a team of world-class researchers and consultants who publish in leading academic journals and advise the food industry. Our students secure the best placements and go on to have exciting careers in the industry. We specialise in food management, sustainability, innovation, safety and nutrition.

The competition proposal

Food sustainability is a major challenge for society and yet it remains poorly understood. A growing global population means the world will need to provide 50% more food, 50% more energy and 30% more water by 2030, with the additional impact of climate change making the challenge even more complex and demanding. However, those companies fulfilling these demands and able to offer economical, ecological and social sustainability, will reap the benefits from cost, quality, flexibility, or differentiation advantages.

All students on our Masters courses complete a unit entitled Global Food Security and Sustainability. This unit covers in detail the challenges faced by the world’s leading food companies and how they are responding to these. As part of the assessment of this unit, students are required to give a presentation about the challenges of feeding a growing world population with the threat of climate change, loss of agricultural land and the increase in demand for more resource intensive foods from India and China.

This year the student’s presentations will be entered into a competition on 20th November 2014, which will be judged by the writer and broadcaster Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall; of course, Hugh is a passionate campaigner for sustainable food. The finalists of the competition will win a trip to India to take place between 25th February – 3rd March 2015.

Contact

If you would like any further information on this project, please contact:

Ajay Patel MMU Righton Building Manchester M15 6BG

Email: a.k.patel@mmu.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0)161 247 2752

Mobile: 07815 709 892

International Food Conference

When in India the winners will take part in an international food conference (26th-28th February 2015), hosted by the National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management (NIFTEM) in Sonepat, near New Delhi. At that conference Indian students will take part in a parallel competition looking at the issue of sustainability in food from an Indian perspective. The successful students will win a trip to the UK with the opportunity to take part in our Master’s classes and visit food businesses.

In India we will also hold a celebratory event at the British Council in New Delhi on 27th February 2015, featuring an exhibition of photographs of the competitions and speeches from leaders in food and education in India. The whole process will be documented in a blog at ourfuturefood.org by award-winning photographer and writer, Len Grant, who will also produce a legacy book of the project.

Sustainable outcomes

MMU has been awarded with the title of the Greenest University in the UK due to its commitment to a broad sustainability agenda across a range of disciplines including tourism, hospitality and apparel.

We are therefore committed to food sustainability by helping ensure the continued prosperity of the industry and dependent communities by fostering long-term international partnerships for research and teaching, with organisations such as NIFTEM.

NIFTEM is a world-class centre of excellence in food technology, entrepreneurship and policy and is an undertaking of the government of India. MMU and NIFTEM will work together to seek to take advantage of the opportunities for collaboration in research and knowledge exchange as provided by the UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI), the Newton Fund and others.

It is our intention to run the sustainable food competition as an annual event and, hopefully to expand it to other regions.