Student Food Packaging Development Competition - 2026

IFT Food Packaging Division Sponsored Student Competition

Please reach out to mbozek@ift.org for form assistance.

Deadline: April 30, 2025 11:59 p.m. CT

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* 1. Main Contact - Name, Email, IFT member number

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* 2. Participant Information - Name, Email, University, Academic Year (e.g. undergraduate junior, 2nd year graduate student, etc.) and IFT member number for each participant

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* 3. Optional - Project Advisor Contact Information - Name, University or Company, and Email

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* 4. Title of Concept

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* 5. Write a concept that is created exclusively for the IFT Student Food Packaging Development Competition. Essay should include:
- Problem or need - define the problem that you are trying to solve or the
need that you are trying to address and explain why this relates to food
packaging. Please provide supporting documents, which could be in-text
literature references, communication with industrial experts, and/or
summary notes presented as figures or comparison tables.
- Solution(s) to the proposed problem or need. Please provide supporting
documents, similar to the examples provided above.

Essay should be minimum 750 words and maximum 1500 words. In-text and full citations should be included. Full citations are excluded from word count.

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* 6. Illustration, image, or video of a packaging prototype, if applicable (optional)

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* 7. I accept the following terms and conditions:

Copyright Ownership
I warrant and represent that (a) I have full power and authority, free of any rights of any nature whatsoever by any person, to enter into this Agreement and to grant the rights which are granted to IFT in this Agreement; (b) no part of my presentation infringes upon any copyright or other intellectual
property right of any third party; (c) the presentation contains nothing libelous, injurious or untrue (d) I have, as necessary, obtained appropriate permission to re-print any portion of the materials for which I am not the author. I have obtained concurrence from the sole author, co-authors or colleagues before submitting my materials for presentation and publication and have acknowledged all contributions to the materials.

License
I grant to IFT a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to (1) record and reproduce, in any format, my presentation and to edit such at IFT's reasonable discretion; (2) reproduce, publish, display, and distribute such recordings, the presentation, and any materials which I make available as a
supplement to my presentation, for IFT's business purposes; and (3) include the submitted materials individually or as part of a collective work distributed before, during, or after the competition, including, but not limited to, on the IFT website. (IFT may make technical modifications to the presentation or submitted materials as needed to store them electronically or otherwise make them available electronically.) I understand that this license to IFT does not change my ownership of the Materials and that I am free to otherwise make use of the Materials. Should I publish or give permission to others to publish these Materials at a later date, however, I and others must indicate that the work was produced as part of the competition. I understand that IFT recommends that I attach a notice of my copyright ownership on the cover page of my Materials.

Artificial Intelligence
IFT acknowledges Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools have many benefits, but their use also carries a number of risks. I agree to only use AI tools for the following authorized purposes: idea generation, general-knowledge questions and research meant to enhance my understanding on a topic,
and to summarize online research or to create outlines for content projects to assist in full coverage of a topic. I will not use AI Tools to create final work product (including the Program and Materials) and create content to be distributed by IFT. While using AI tools, I will not enter any IFT or third-party
confidential, trade secret, or other personal or proprietary information into a prompt for an AI Tool. I agree to comply with IFT policies and guidelines on use of AI tools. Further, I acknowledge that IFT may use AI tools to develop content to provide guidance to customers and partners and that such AI tools may access and use content for IFT has rights. However, I appreciated that, should the materials I submit, be used by such AI tools, IFT will provide me with the proper attribution/credit/citation for my relative contribution.

Yes