Open innovation and incorporation between academia and the food industry

The food industry is increasingly choosing to enhance internal idea development by pursuing an open approach to innovation, exploiting external knowledge and market paths. This chapter provides an overview on “Open Innovation” as implemented in the food industry. Specifically, based on a range of essential case studies, a comprehensive overview of the adoption of the Open Innovation paradigm in the food industry is provided. Then, the role of academia in such a context is investigated, and a “4W Open Innovation model” for the academia-industry interaction, including motives, facilitators and hindering factors (Why/why not), type of exchanged knowledge (What), practices and activities (hoW), and actors (With whom), is proposed. The main results reveal the main challenges and paradigm shifts of the food industry and identify implications for the future of Open Innovation in the sector.