Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences team wins special prize at ECOTROPHELIA 2024 in Paris with ‘OPOKE’

Entrepreneurship Spirit Award for healthy breakfast biscuit

A healthy and balanced breakfast is essential for a good start to the day. Students Berna Gayret, Jovana Komlenic, Christian Dielmann and Saskia Trompell from Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences have developed a biscuit that is rich in fibre and plant-based proteins and contains no artificial additives. They have now won the Entrepreneurship Spirit Award at the 25th anniversary edition of the ECOTROPHELIA Europe ideas competition. Student teams from all over Europe have been competing against each other with their innovative and sustainable food products in the competition, which has been held annually since 2008.

 ‘We are thrilled that we were able to impress with our idea and win this special award. Taking part in ECOTROPHELIA Europe was an incredibly enriching experience for us: we were able to exchange ideas with other teams from Europe, receive inspiring feedback, visit the SIAL food fair - and experience the beauty of Paris at the same time. This success is a great confirmation of our work in the field of entrepreneurship and motivates us to further develop our product and the concept,’ says the project team.

The vegan ‘OPOKE’ breakfast biscuit is made from rolled oats and okara, a pressed residue from soya drink production. There are no additives such as preservatives, flavour enhancers, thickeners or antioxidants. If you don't have time for a quiet breakfast at home in the morning, you can nibble it on the way to work, school or university. It can also be prepared with milk or plant-based drink in the microwave as porridge or overnight in the fridge as overnight oats. The four food technology students developed the date-walnut and banana-dark chocolate flavours and had them tested by fellow students, family and friends. The fact that the biscuit does not taste too sweet and at the same time not too healthy was noted positively by many testers.

The nutritional and physiological properties of ‘OPOKE’ already impressed the jury of the national preliminary round of TROPHELIA in April 2024. The Bremerhaven students won there with their product. They have now been honoured with the Entrepreneurship Spirit Award at ECOTROPHELIA. They were supervised by Prof Dr Ramona Bosse.
 
Further information:
 
Information on the Food Technology degree programme: www.hs-bremerhaven.de/lebensmitteltechnologie
Information on the ‘OPOKE’ product idea: www.fei-bonn.de/trophelia-2024..
 
The image gallery for the ECOTROPHELIA competition and corresponding press releases will be posted by the organiser at https://eu.ecotrophelia.org.
 
The FEI has once again announced the national ideas competition TROPHELIA Germany for 2025: Further information on the competition can be found at www.fei-bonn.de/foerde...helia-2025.