BBS Entrepreneurship student Gavyn Pedley pitched a mouth-watering vegetarian version of a bacon sandwich to the judges of the Alltech University Student Enterprise Award. “I knew it was a long-shot as some of them are in the dairy livestock business!’ he said. However Alltech’s Director of Educational Initiatives, Dr Aoife Lyons just happens to be a vegetarian too and hence, the Moodley-Manor idea of meat-free and dairy-free meals really appealed to her.
Gavyn has been working in the food innovation space since entering the EDEN Student Enterprise competition where he came second in 2014. EDEN introduced him to Teagasc and this began a path that led to Gavyn being awarded a €5000 Enterprise Ireland Innovation Voucher and then being accepted on the New Frontiers programme earlier this year.
The EDEN Centre for Entrepreneurship, Design and Creativity at Maynooth University coaches students with entrepreneurial ideas to make them happen and also assists in developing pitches for entrepreneurial competitions – both national and international.
Speaking about Gavyn after the event – Prof Damien McLoughlin of UCD, one of the organisers said that Gavyn’s idea and his presentation were sensational. Aoife Casey, Alltech liaison with universities said ‘I just want to say Gavyn did a really brilliant job yesterday and was an excellent competitor with a very good product. Next year’s Maynooth University contestant might have a tough job matching him.’
Also attending the event as Gavyn’s university innovation mentor, Dr Peter Robbins, head of the EDEN centre said, ‘It’s a privilege working with Gavyn – he is creative, driven and passionate about his idea. He has integrity. He is the definitive entrepreneur and we love working with him. He is already trading to a reasonable volume and big-time, commercial success is getting increasingly close for him.’
The Alltech competition seeks to bring to the surface smart people with smart ideas in all of the country’s universities. The concepts presented by the university finalists were as follows:
- University College Dublin – Moo Shoe - provides a solution to lameness in dairy cows (This was chosen as the outright winner).
- Maynooth University– Moodley Manor – manufacturing dairy-free & animal-free foods
- Dublin City University – The Summit Shaker – stainless steel protein shaker
- Dublin Institute of Technology – Hear Here Ltd. – assistive technology devices for the deaf and hard of hearing communities
- Trinity College Dublin – GreenCar - a peer-to-peer car sharing company
- University of Limerick – Integrated digital marketing communications platform for small and medium enterprises