Spirit of Innovation Awards

RSS

The Spirit of Innovation (SOI) Awards are a unique opportunity to acknowledge outstanding product development teams and the innovation used to design and launch successful new products—all while providing new products and companies with priceless worldwide exposure.

Whether it’s because they’re battling a health condition, such as diabetes, or simply watching their weight, consumers are looking to avoid sugar. Meanwhile, certain sweetener alternatives have fallen out of public favor (justifiably so, or not).

Sometimes, a team has to think outside the box. Then again, there are times when a customer might ask a company to literally think outside its plant’s capabilities. Such was the case for Sandridge Food Corp., a refrigerated deli salads processor.

Each year, Prepared Foods honors the food and beverage industry’s most ground-breaking innovations, as well as the teamwork behind those products. This year’s awards, sponsored by the American Egg Board, were presented at the Prepared Foods’ New Products Conference in September and recognized a range of products--from entrees to desserts.

The nominees for the 2009 Spirit of Innovation ran the gamut, from beverages to snacks, from breakfast items to dessert snacks. The innovative teamwork involved in creating these exemplary products managed to combine unique concepts with the latest trends and the underlying needs of the consumers.

This yearís Spirit of Innovation Awards feature a diverse array of products--and an equally diverse range of teams and approaches to development.

Foodservice operators are challenged to provide tasty new offerings for their vegetarian patrons, and the winner of the 2007 Spirit of Innovation Award: Foodservice worked with eateries to introduce a vegetarian crab-style cake. 

Nominations for the 2007 Spirit of Innovation Awards gained the greatest heights yet, in terms of both quantity and quality.

Responding to foodservice consumers' demands for a wider selection of natural items, Hormel Foods implemented a new technology to present a natural line of sliced meats and, in the process, displayed the teamwork and innovativeness that were key to its 2006 Spirit of Innovation Award—Foodservice.