Students head to European final with a bananas idea

A business set up by students which uses surplus fruit to make high-protein bars is to represent the UK at a European entrepreneurship competition.

The students from Harper Adams University in Shropshire impressed regional judges with their idea of turning bananas to into healthy snacks to become the UK entry at Gen-E in Latvia.

Noticing that bananas were the most wasted or leftover fruit from a local initiative at the college that sees edible but unsold items collected from supermarkets, the students came together "to intervene".

The team said they were "gobsmacked" to be told their idea had got them to the European finals.

"It didn't quite hit me until I was already home," first year food science and technology apprentice, Cayden Ayliffe, from Telford, said.

"I was completely shocked, but felt so grateful to see all the work that the team did come to fruition."

First year food business management student, Lucie Campbell, from Peebles in the Scottish Borders, said their idea started "with a surplus of bruised bananas in our university's community fridge".

"This local initiative collects unsold, perfectly edible food from supermarkets and makes it free for anyone to take," she said.

"Seeing that bananas were consistently the most wasted item, we knew we had to intervene."

She added that they wanted to turn them into something genuinely healthy. "not just another banana bread", and created bars with a third of the daily recommended amount of fibre in.

"We set off with a simple idea - date and banana bars. But we quickly discovered that the humble banana held far more potential than we ever imagined."

The students came together to form Riff Snacks and first presented their product at the regional heats of the Young Enterprise competition in May.

They managed to progress to the competition's national finals in Manchester where they emerged as overall winners, the university said.

Ava Kind, a first-year food business management student, from Ironbridge, said learning they had won was "surreal".

"We were up against some incredible teams, so when our name was called, I think all of our jaws hit the floor.

"It was an incredibly proud moment for all of us and a real reward for the hard work, teamwork, and determination that had gone into the project."

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