This year’s “Inno d’Or – Innovation of the Year” awards were presented at the Innovation Day conference

By: Németh László Date: 2023. 05. 11. 22:43

For the third time, Trade magazine organised the award ceremony of the contest that first took place in 2021, as part of the programme of a one-day conference.

There were six exciting project presentations at the event, introducing the main characteristics of the new ideas and innovative solutions. This year’s winners received their prizes after the presentations – the goal of the competition was to reward value creating innovations that satisfy important shopper or consumer needs, and fit into some kind of current trend or are the results of innovation work inspired by an already existing product or service, satisfying a new kind of demand. At the end of the award ceremony, the Best of the Best innovation awards were also announced.

The innovation-themed event took place in Hungexpo’s new Conference Centre on 11 May.

Innovation trends

The keynote speaker was persuasion and influence technique expert Dr László Újszászi-Bogár. In his presentation he used practical examples to introduce a large number of factors, which can influence the success of an innovation, and he also talked about a few failed innovations and the reasons behind their fiasco.

He was followed by Microsoft’s managing director Péter Szabó, who shared lots of interesting information about one of the hottest topics these days, chatGPT, also talking about how the appearance and development of chatGPT will cause changes in the market.

Food policy analyst Réka Szöllősi stepped on the podium next, speaking about the regulatory framework of the future, and giving an overview of the “bogeyman” of launching new products: the planned future regulations in Hungary and the European Union.

It is never easy to be the first speaker after lunch, but the situation is different if the presenter speaks about a topic that is timeless – in this case generational differences. Andrea Princz, a consultant of SteiGen brought a presentation about how sensitive certain generations are to new innovations.

Deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture Dr Beáta Olga Felkai shared where does Hungary stand on the European innovation scoreboard based on the WIPO global innovation index. The financing environment, the regulatory background and the institutional system were also discussed.

There was also a presentation during the award ceremony, and its topic was directly related to the winner products. Balázs Fehér, marketing account director of Ipsos analysed one of the most important trends: what consumers think about plant-based food innovations.

6 categories, 21 winners

This year there were 21 competition winners, decided by the members of the large jury panel – companies could enter the competition with innovations launched between 1 January 2022 and 31 December 2022, which brought something new to the market in their own categories.

Competition entries were evaluated using five criteria: innovation content, trend compatibility, market advantages, periodical result, and chances of market success. In the case of those products where it was possible, there was sensory evaluation too.

Entries were sent in the main categories of food, drink, cosmetics, drugs, services and packaging, branded products and private labels were both eligible for participation, and as regards target group, there were both B2B and B2C products. 2023 was the first when “free-from” products had their own category.

This year the three entries with the highest score also received the Best of the Best, “Best Innovation of 2023” award certificate.