A vegan meat based on cashew apples and a specially designed headgear for sports - now the two Dala innovations are being awarded.
The SKAPA prize is Sweden's largest innovation competition. It selects 24 regional winners who go on to the big national final on November 9 in Stockholm.
The award ceremony for the Dalarna final of SKAPA was held earlier today at Dalarna Science Park, in connection with the opening of Dalarna Innovation Days 2023.
Linnéa Falkinger is the woman behind the veggie meat CashewMeetly. She wins the regional SKAPA prize and is Dalarna's finalist in Stockholm on November 9, with a chance to win SEK 500,000 in the national final.
Daniel Björkman has developed a special headgear for football players and is awarded the SKAPA talent prize for young innovators. Daniel will also be traveling to Stockholm to compete for the national prize for young talent.
Business developer Jörgen Steen, Dalarna Science Park, is one of the members of the Dalarna jury. He says that this year the jury had several fine applications to consider.
- "Both Linnéa and Daniel have innovations that match the competition criteria in a really good way, including in terms of creative height and realizability. Now it will be exciting to follow their continued journey and we wish them good luck," he says.
The jury's reasoning
SKAPA Prize, Dalarna: Linnéa Falkinger
With the product CashewMeetly, Linnéa has created a new plant-based raw material that replaces animal meat in various dishes. This significantly reduces the climate impact, both by reducing animal products and through circular flows in the business model. This is because the raw material consists of residual flows from the harvesting of cashew nuts, which are normally not utilized but left to rot.
The business concept is also based on working only with growers in developing countries who guarantee good working conditions, especially for women.
By offering a brand new, innovative raw material for vegetarian cooking, the CashewMeetly product also opens up creativity and innovation in cooking for both professional and home cooks. Linnéa has also been awarded a gastronomic prize for bringing a new innovative food ingredient to the industry.
All this has contributed to the launch of CashewMeetly being well received on the market and contracts have been signed with one of the major Swedish food companies, Axfood.
SKAPA-talang (young innovators), Dalarna: Daniel Björkman
In most sports, there are different typical injury risks. In the case of head injuries, the most high-risk sports require the use of helmets (motor sport, horse riding, ice hockey, etc.). (In some sports, this is not possible, even though the problem is significant. This applies, for example, to football, where there is currently no preventive head protection that is accepted by the players. The need is particularly great among young athletes, whose brains are considered fragile up to the age of 20.
A key factor for success is to succeed in creating a product with a verified protective function combined with aesthetic qualities that make it acceptable to the target group. In the project, the innovator has therefore created a development team, enlisted the support of researchers and also collaborated with an industrial designer in the development. This has resulted in an impact-absorbing headgear, designed to be discreet, aesthetically pleasing and protect the zones of the head that are most sensitive.
The conditions for successful commercialization seem good.
About the SKAPA award
The SKAPA Foundation was established in 1985 in memory of Alfred Nobel. Since 1986, the Foundation has awarded the SKAPA Prize with the aim of supporting innovators to develop their inventions into products and services on the market. The competition has both an open class and a talent class for young innovators.
Previous winners in Dalarna
2022
SKAPA Award: Idris Harki, for a process that produces natural fragrances.
SKAPA talent: Albin Mårtensson, for the "ladle stop" that prevents ladle handles from slipping into the food.
2021
SKAPA Award: Roger Danielsson, RDX, for Green Buffers that provide safer train connections. Roger also won the national SKAPA final.
SKAPA talent: Simon and Filip Hedlund for Booksquare, a digital platform for student literature.
2020
SKAPA Award: Fredrik Bokvist and Lars Thelin, Vivolab AB, for the Breeze breathing device.
2019
SKAPA Award: Petri Ruotsalainen for Optopro, which digitizes and streamlines fiber projects.
SKAPA talent: David Forsberg for the payment solution Kwikk.
