The Flavoria Innovation Festival is a week-long innovation course where multidisciplinary student teams tackle challenges in the food chain. The theme of the 2026 course is organic industry, and we are looking for companies and organizations interested in developing new organic-themed solutions together with the students. The innovation course will be held in Turku on November 9–13, 2026.
Benefits for the Companies
The innovation course offers a unique opportunity to:
- present your own challenge or development need for student teams to solve
- receive fresh, bold, and practical ideas
- meet future talents and potential future employees
- build visibility and collaboration with actors in the field.
Multidisciplinary teams ensure innovative outcomes. The development of solutions follows the Design Sprint process, and throughout the week, experts and mentors support the teams.
Proving a Challenge
A challenge can be related, for example, to product development, process renewal, customer insight, or new concepts that promote the use of organic products. The most important thing is that the challenge is clearly defined and based on a genuine need or development area.
We are happy to help you in defining the challenge!
The deadline for submitting challenges is April 20, 2026.
Contact Us
If you are interested in offering a challenge or have any other questions, feel free to contact our team:
Emma Sivula
emma.sivula@utu.fi
Project Coordinator, University of Turku
Sini Laikola
sini.laikola@utu.fi
Project Coordinator, University of Turku
FAQ about Participating and the Schedule
The benefit a company receives from participating in the innovation week is considered de minimis aid, meaning a form of minor state aid. For the Flavoria Innovation Festival, the value of this aid is €150.
A company may receive up to €300,000 of de minimis aid over a three‑year period (the current and the two previous fiscal years). If the company has not previously received de minimis aid, or its maximum amount has not been reached, the company does not pay anything. Instead, the value of participation (€150) is recorded and the information is provided to the project’s funders for accounting purposes.
The company/organization is required to provide an organic‑themed, clearly defined challenge by April 20, 2026. Our team is happy to help with defining the challenge!
In addition, a more detailed challenge description and an information package about the company/organization are needed by September 11, 2026.
November 9, 2026 – approx. 12:30–16:30 in Turku (to be confirmed)
- A 15-minute presentation related to the challenge
- A 15-minute Q&A session
November 9–10, 2026 (remote)
Responding to questions from student teams by email:
- Each team may contact a designated person in your organization and submit one to three short questions.
November 10, 2026 – approx. 14:00–17:00 in Turku (to be confirmed)
Participation in an idea testing and validation session:
- About 20 minutes per team
- A total of three teams, i.e., approximately 1.5 hours
November 13, 2026 – approx. 12:00–17:00 in Turku (to be confirmed)
Presentation and discussion of the solutions:
- Teams present their solutions (5-minute pitches)
- Afterwards, the jury and the company may give feedback
Flavoria Innovation Festival 2026 is organized as part of the “FoRDI – Accelerating RDI in the Food Sector through New Operating Models” project, co-funded by the EU, and the “OrganicInnovations” project, funded by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Finland. The Innovation Festival is carried out by Business Turku and the Nutrition and Food Research Center, University of Turku.
