2026 Theme - Designing Safe Food Beyond Borders: When Compliance Meets Innovation

As food products move across increasingly complex global supply chains, innovation in product development must be balanced with safety, quality and regulatory expectations across markets. In addition to creativity, modern product development is driven by global compliance requirements, advancing technologies, and data informed design decisions to ensure food is safe and reliable. This infographic competition is designed for IFT student members to showcase their skills in communicating how modern product development is evolving at the intersection of safety, innovation and global influence. 

This year’s topic, Designing Safe Food Beyond Borders: When Compliance Meets Innovation, encourages participants to examine how food companies design products with safety and quality in mind. This includes looking at how global regulatory frameworks around the world guide formulation decisions, ingredient choices, and processing requirements. Students may also show how digital tools such as sensors, digital traceability systems, and AI-enabled insights support smarter, more informed design choices. Additionally, they can highlight how new processing innovations are enabling safer, higher-quality, and more efficient product development for a global market. By participating in this competition students will,

• Develop principles that connect compliance with modern product development practices
• Deepen their knowledge of how global regulations, digital tools and processing innovations shape product design decisions
• Demonstrate their ability to translate product development and food safety knowledge into engaging communication
• Apply previously acquired scientific and technical skills
• Gain exposure and prestige
• Win a cash prize if declared the winner

Competition participants will be notified of their status before IFT FIRST: Annual Event & Expo along with a monetary prize of $1000, $750, and $500 awarded to first, second, and third place teams. The winner/winning team may receive recognition through social media and the Product Development Division and/or International Division communications.

Eligibility & Teams

• All participants must be IFT student members
• Group or individual submissions are allowed - open to maximum 4 people in a group
• Teams may be undergraduate students, graduate students, or both together
• Students from different (or same) universities around the globe can collaborate

Topic and Rules

Students will create an infographic that aligns to the following topic:

Designing Safe Food Beyond Borders: When Compliance Meets Innovation

• Digital graphic submission. This can be created using software such as, but not limited to, PowerPoint. The recommended slide size is 18x24 inches.
• We will only accept static posters for this contest (video and gif elements are not allowed)
• Each group or individual is limited to one submission (multiple submissions are not allowed)
• Your message should align with the modern advancements being adopted by food product developers considering safety and quality principles (as demonstrated in the initial sections)
• References must be provided wherever needed. Links to articles/appropriate sources are allowed instead of citations to avoid excessive wording and to make the best use of space.

Timeline

• Deadline for participants to submit: April 30, 2026 @ 11:59 p.m. CT
• Results will be announced by July 2026

Judging Criteria

A panel of experts in the areas of product development, ingredient specialization, and scientific communication will judge the entries. Organizers can serve as judges if needed.

The submissions will be evaluated based on:

1. Concept relevance (using the concepts of few advancements in food safety, their adoption, creativity, and background information) – 40%
2. Content Knowledge (Understanding science, interpretation of results, validity of conclusion) – 40%
3. Presentation Layout (Organization, visual appeal) – 20%

Submitters are encouraged to keep the following points in mind:

• Language should be easy to understand
• Creative use of graphics
• Focus on using relevant, up-to-date information
• The message should be clear and easy to understand
• Specific companies or brands should not be referenced, especially in a defamatory way
• Be mindful about copyright

Entry Form

Contact

Please feel free to reach out to Gagan Gandhi (gagangandhi1@gmail.com) and Chamali Kodikara (kodikarc@myumanitoba.ca) if you have any questions about the competition. Please reach out to Melanie Bozek (mbozek@ift.org) regarding the submission form process.