Elevator Pitch Contest by Sight and Life

Breda Gavin-Smith asks a fnalist a question during the Q&A session in Accra, Ghana

The seven fnalists were awarded a round trip to Accra, Ghana, to pitch their innovations at the Ghana Industrial Summit & Exhibition 2019. Before the competition, each fnalist received extensive mentorship and feedback regarding their concept and presentation to help hone their pitch. The fnalists worked with Parand Salmassinia, Global Vice President of Commercial Strategy and Key Accounts for DSM’s Personal Care & Aroma Ingredients business, and Dr Nii Addy, Assistant Professor (Research) at McGill University’s Institute for the Study of International Development, on their innovations, refning their pitches and improving their narratives during multiple group and individual sessions.

“I greatly enjoyed serving as a mentor to the contesants. Their passion and dedicaton for their ventres was insiring. One could see how muc efort they had put into the overall work, incuding the pitces. ” Nii Addy, Elevator Pitc Contes mentor

The fnalists also met with William Ofori Appaw, a previous EPC fnalist, who shared his entrepreneurial journey and the experience of participating in the 2018 EPC in Mumbai.

The winners The third-place winner of the EPC was Ewura-Esi Manfl fom Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, with ‘Sweetpot Yogurt’ – a nutritious yogurt that aims to curb vitamin A defciency while simultaneously providing a market for sweet potatoes. Sweetpot Yoghurt is naturally favored and supplemented with vitamin A and dietary fbers, presenting consumers with a healthier snack choice. The second-place winner was Grace A Twumasi, also fom Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. She pitched an innovative, nutrient-dense food for children made completely fom locally available raw materials such as orangefesh sweet potato, millet and soya beans. Grace’s innovation has already completed research trials at the Manhiya Children’s Hospital in Kumasi, and is ready to be scaled up to the market. The winner of the competition was Zeenatu Suglo Adams fom Pneuma Food Scientifcs, a startup that formulates afordable and nutritious snacks that taste great. Zeenatu pitched ‘Yammy Pops,’ a ready-to-eat extruded snack made fom underutilized and highly nutritious crops (yam, tamarind and baobab). This snack is rich in vitamin C, dietary minerals, protein and fber.

Grace A Twumasi receives the frst runner-up award fom Ing. Alfed D Sackeyfo, Director of Corporate Strategy, Volta River Authority

Yammy Pops are similar to corn pops but because they are made fom yams they will help to reduce dietary dependence on cereals and grains.

“Initally it was not an easy tas, but afer many rehearsals and coacing by the EPC team, I managed to talk about my idea in fve minutes. This acivit helped me identf the key featres needed for building a business. Passion alone is not enough. The facs and fgures are very important. ” Zeenat Suglo Adams, Elevator Pitc Contes winner

provide individual body mass index scores depending on height and weight. The EPC by Sight and Life brought together local entrepreneurs and provided an opportunity for them to connect and incubate their ideas. The seven finalists filled this contest with their cutting-edge ideas and passion. We are looking forward to bright futures for all of them. This was Sight and Life’s fourth EPC, the frst three having been held in Cancun (2016, focusing on micronutrients), Boston (2018, seeking innovations in nutrition assessment) and Mumbai (2018, searching for ways to reduce afatoxins). The next EPC will be held in Bangkok on 24 March 2020, and will focus on climate-smart nutrition. For more information on these exciting competitions, visit www.elevator-pitch-contest.org.

Correspondence: Srujith Lingala, Growth Ofcer, Elevator Pitch Contest, Sight and Life, PO Box 2116, 4002 Basel, Switzerland. Email: srujith.lingala@sightandlife.org

The other EPC fnalists were:

Joachim Asare, SPeCS Foods Muden is a nutritious, fermented cake made fom cereals that are popular in Ghana, such as maize, millet, rice, soybean and sorghum. It can either be eaten on its own or added to cooked foods. The fermentation process enhances the development of micronutrients.

Edith Kufoalor, Sosogin Sosogin is an organic herbal tea made fom locally grown hibiscus petals, bicolor sorghum grass, lemongrass and ginger. It contains nutrients that help digestion and prevent stomach ulcers, and it also contains anti-bioflm agents such as betacarotene and lycopene.

John Attu, Nature Foods John Attu’s submission was a yogurt made fom fesh pasteurized cow’s milk and locally sourced fuits. The product is rich in protein, calcium, vitamin D, vitamin B₁₂, ribofavin, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium and probiotics, which boost digestive health. The addition of fesh fuits improves the vitamin, mineral and fber content of the product.

Deborah Amoasi, Dietician App The Dietician App is a mobile app with a database that lists the calorific content of all Ghanaian foods. The aim of the app is to be able to convert foods consumed into daily calories and

Editor’s note: This section contains reviews of books, whether brand new or classic, that we hope will be of interest to our readers.

Book Review Seduced by a Burger (Again) Why You Eat What You Eat: The Science behind Our Relationship with Food

Rachel Herz Publisher: WW Norton & Company, 2018 Language: English ISBN: 978-0-393-24331-4

It is one of the most famous moments in literature; so famous that it acquired its own name. The frst person ever to experience a ‘Proustian moment’ was the French author Marcel Proust himself. Proust recounts it at the opening of his novel À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, translated variously as Remembrance of Things Past and In Search of Lost Time, which was published in seven volumes in the years between 1913 and 1927. One of the most remarkable aspects of this moment is that almost nothing happens in it. A young boy eats a cake, a ‘petite madeleine,’ dipped in some tea. And yet the experience of the combined favors has a permanently transformational efect on the narrator’s sensibility as he recalls it to mind: “ … one day in winter, as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, ofered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at frst, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called ‘petites madeleines,’ which look as though they had been molded in the futed scallop of a pilgrim’s shell. And soon, mechanically, weary afer a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indiferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the efect which love has of flling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of tea and cake, but that it infnitely transcended those savors, could not, indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come? What did it signify? How could I seize upon and defne it?” 1 If Proust provided a philosophical explanation of the ‘madeleine moment,’ Rachel Herz ofers a scientifc one in this remarkable book. “Scent brings back our most emotional and evocative memories,” she writes, “and without a sense of smell we lose not only this unique experience but also pieces of ourselves. Proust wrote that in the years between the original event and tasting the madeleine, he had never recalled his childhood moments ... Aromas and favors awaken facets of our lives that might otherwise be forever forgotten.” 2 Probably all of us are aware at some level of the link between aroma, favor, emotion and memory, but how many of us know that the color of a plate can alter one’s perception of the food presented on it? Or that the shape into which a food is cut will infuence how sweet or savory it appears to taste? Or again, that the level of lighting in a restaurant has an impact on how quickly one eats?

The factors that infuence every eating decision we make This is a powerfully useful book. Writing with the panache of a popular journalist and the rigor of a scientifc researcher, Herz explores the factors that infuence every eating decision we make. Starting right at the beginning, she discusses the “fab