Challenges and wants

Cleaning up fat

When it comes to washing clothes and cleaning surfaces, some fatty deposits are tough to remove. We want to make it easier to get surfaces spotless, in a way that doesn’t harm the environment.

What we are looking for

This solution could be incorporated as an ingredient in the detergent formulation or be a standalone solution, eg a pre-treatment applied directly to the fabric or hard surface. It must address either laundry or hard surface, preferably both, and should be accompanied by an explanation of the mechanism(s) of operation.

Find out more about our ‘Cleaning up fat’ challenge

We need to find a water-soluble red colour that we can use in fruit and dairy products. It must be natural (not artificial), remain stable over a ten-month shelf life and be cost-effective.

Find out more about our ‘natural colouring’ challenge

We want to find alternatives to conventional sugar. That could be ingredients that provide taste and mouthfeel with low calorie content and no after taste. Or technology that helps us understand ways that consumers can experience satisfying taste while enjoying drinks with reduced sugar levels.

Find out more about this sugar reduction challenge

We are committed to providing safe, affordable drinking water to 500 million people by 2020. We are looking for design or technological solutions to the challenge of providing safe water at an affordable price – less than 1 cent per litre – and we welcome approaches from potential partners who share our commitment.

We're open to working with partners who can help with the solutions we're already considering – or who have a technological idea we haven't thought of at all.

Find out more about the challenge to provide safe drinking water

Are you working on a new virucidal active? We'd like to work with partners who could help us, particularly if they have already undergone external, third-party assays and, ideally, tested under the EN 14476 Quantitative Suspension Method for Virucidal Activity. Any natural or synthetic product we developed would have to come from a source that could produce substantial quantities in a reliable and sustainable way.

Find out more about this challenge to fight viruses

We want to cut the weight, quantity and waste of our product packaging. Could you work with us to achieve this?

Find out about the packaging challenge

We want to develop products and technologies that allow consumers to get superior washing performance using lower temperatures and less water. Do you have a technical solution that could help?

Find out about the sustainable washing challenge

We want open innovation to help us find alternatives to conventional salt. That might mean ingredients that provide taste without sodium – but it could also mean technology that helps us understand ways that consumers can experience satisfying taste while enjoying food with reduced salt levels. Solutions could be highly specific – a way to improve particular products or dishes – or could apply to the way people consume salt more generally.

Learn more about the salt challenge

We'd be interested in working with partners who are developing ways to create a 'wow' factor in toothpaste, through new sensory experiences – taste, texture, even sound – new flavours, or new ingredients.

Read more about the toothpaste challenge

We want our food to stay fresh and delicious for consumers – which means finding ways to achieve broad spectrum anti-microbial stability. We'd like to achieve that naturally - specifically in the aqueous phase of water in oil spreads, oil in water emulsions, and intermediate moisture foods for savoury applications.

Learn more about the food preservation challenge

Renewable energy sources like wind and solar can make a massive difference to the environment as a whole and to individuals and communities, especially in the developing world – but there is an urgent need to find small-scale energy storage systems that keep releasing power when, for example, the sun has gone down or the wind has stopped blowing.

Can you help us solve the energy challenge?

We want our products to give consumers a great shower and bath experience – but at lower temperatures, and with less water. Do you have a technical solution that could help?

Find out about the showering challenge.

We want to develop new devices and products that would help consumers use the world's resources more sustainably. Do you have an approach that could change consumer behaviour?

Find out about the challenge to change consumer behaviour