Products by ITMO Students Named Best at VkusVill Startup Incubator

Collab is a startup incubator by VkusVill that helps students complete the full innovative foods development cycle: from analyzing the audience and polishing the idea to creating a recipe and packaging – and launching the product. The incubator’s second season saw 112 applications from 30 universities in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. After the qualifying demo days, 34 teams were invited to workshops by VkusVill experts in technological entrepreneurship, unit economics, and packaging design. These teams also developed products in seven tracks: meat, fish, dairy, snacks, drinks, sweets & bread, and R&D. At the end, experts chose 21 teams they named best.

Team CookieFun came up with a zinc- and magnesium-enriched brownie based on corn bran. By paying particular attention to the recipe and technology, the team managed to create a functional product that is dairy-, lactose-, and sugarfree, has a low glycemic index, and is low in calories but high in fiber. With this feat, the team became best in the category Functional Health Foods and got the opportunity to perfect their product and deliver a test batch of their product to VkusVill shelves.

“When you learn that a dessert is healthy and sugarfree, you expect it to taste different. During the online demo days, many VkusVill experts had this opinion, but when they tasted our brownies at the on-site finals, they were surprised how much a sugarfree product can resemble a regular brownie. We were able to take the special prize by focusing on the recipe and production technology. Our brownie will now make its way onto store shelves and we are working in collaboration with VkusVill experts to make sure that it fully fits the company’s ideology. The dough we created can also be used for non-sweet products, too, such as ham-and-cheese pastry, or cookies and tartlets,” shares Daniil Mironov, the project’s technology engineer and a fourth-year student at ITMO’s Faculty of Biotechnologies. 

A clear hypothesis supported by research – that’s what secured the win in the category Scientific Novelty for team HUMMUSapiens and their fermented hummus. Initially, the students were planning to adapt natto, a traditional Japanese dish made from fermented soybeans, for the Russian market. However, natto smells of burned cheese and looks unappetizing. In order to eliminate these drawbacks, the team used not one bacterium, but a combination of two (Bacillus subtillis natto and Lactobacillus bulgaricus); they also made the resulting mass homogeneous. The end product turned out to resemble a fermented analog of hummus. 

“What makes our product unique is nattokinase. This enzyme facilitates the breakdown of fibrin, the protein that forms blood clots. Thus, our fermented hummus helps thin the blood, improves blood flow, and normalizes blood pressure, thus having a positive effect on the cardiovascular system. However, our product isn’t a medicine, but a food product, and its functionality needs to be clinically tested. In the future, we want to rethink the product, analyze its strengths and weaknesses, and after improving it, apply for the ITMO student R&D competition,” says Lyudmila Maksimova, the head of the team and a fourth-year student at ITMO’s Faculty of Biotechnologies. 

Two more products by ITMO students were presented at the finals. Team Trio with Taste suggested inulin sausages in the meat track. According to Anna Bronchukova, the project’s technology engineer and a first-year Master’s student at the Faculty of Biotechnologies, they created a tasty and healthy meat snack with a simple list of ingredients. It was important to lower the fat content while also preserving the product’s juiciness. The recipe also included inulin, a type of fiber that helps the digestive system. At the finals, the team met a representative of a meat factory in the Moscow Oblast, who offered to test the product in production.

Another product by ITMO students was presented in the dairy track by team SSB 2.0. Their non-sweet cream cheese with a vegetable curd and gluten-free granola can be a high-protein snack option. One serving contains an average of 24 grams of protein, which is 15 grams higher than in similar products, as well as a third of the recommended daily amount of fiber – 23 grams. Moreover, the product will fit the taste of those who don’t like sweet foods, according to Svetlana Stepanova, the project’s technology engineer and a second-year student at the Faculty of Biotechnologies. The team is now analyzing expert feedback so that in the future they can improve their product at the joint VkusVill and ITMO R&D center.

Recently, VkusVill and ITMO have launched a joint R&D center for food innovations. There, the university’s students and young researchers will develop new products from ideas to production-ready foods that’ll be ready to hit VkusVill’s shelves.