This competition was initiated and organized by the Singapore Food Manufacturers' Association (SFMA) in an effort to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to carry out product development to improve their products or create new products. Twenty-two products from SMEs were submitted as product development projects and these projects were taken up by student groups from Singapore Polytechnic, Temasek Polytechnic (TP) and Nanyang Polytechnic. The students' mission? To develop their given product from scratch, conduct sensory, quality and marketing tests on the product, and present their product to the judges, all within specified deadlines.
Four student groups from the Diploma in Applied Food Science and Nutrition (AFSN) from TP took up the challenge to experience what product development would be like in the real world and worked on developing the following:
- Tea Flavoured (Rolled) Cookies
- Trans Fat-Free Pastry
- Exotic Mixed Berry Coffee Mix
- Vegetarian Siew Mai
Under the supervision of staff from AFSN, the students went on to develop the products as part of their Major Project. Of the 4 projects, the Tea Flavoured (Rolled) Cookies clinched the Best Packaging Award and the Trans Fat-Free Pastry received the most votes to become the Most Popular Product.
This competition culminated in an exhibition of the products at the Asia Pacific Food Expo 2007 (at Singapore Expo). With their win, the Best Packaging team was swamped with interviews by the press but the team members handled these professionally.
Student Ramesh Kumar sums up his experience with the following: "This was a totally new experience for me even though I had participated in several other competitions before. Not only did the competition enable me to apply all that I learned during my course of study, it also helped me gain new knowledge and skills. In fact, I am confident that it has also prepared me significantly for the working world where the constant challenge to innovate is part and parcel of the competitive food industry."
