Today General Mills, one of the world’s biggest food brands, announced the huge success of its G-WIN Innovation Portal. This web destination was launched back in 2009 with the aim to help the food producer establish close collaboration with inventors to find fresh and sustainable ideas. General Mills were looking for the solutions on the issues such as «product, package and processing technologies that are applicable to the company’s categories or brands, uniquely meet an unmet consumer need, have been proven technically feasible and can be applied quickly, or are potentially game-changing for the food industry».

The company reports, in its first year operating the portal, it has attracted more than 1,000 registered inventors from around who have submitted about 500 proposals. What is more important,  over 40 new General Mills products are said to have been created based on the technologies developed in course of open innovation. This list includes Fiber One Bars, Pillsbury Savorings, Progresso Light soups, Yoplait Smoothie, and Wanchai Ferry frozen dinner kits.

The The G-WIN portal is developed by General Mills in collaboration with software company inno360, Procter & Gamble and the US Air Force Research Laboratory. The web-destination hosts a variety of tools allowing the inventors to share their innovation ideas with the food brand, keep themselves updated on the latest projects, take the jobs and present their ideas.

Jeff Bellairs, senior director, General Mills Worldwide Innovation Network, commented on the tremendous succcess of the project, “A year ago, we accelerated our connected innovation efforts by launching the G-WIN portal. We openly articulated what we were looking for and invited the inventor community to collaborate and participate. The response has been tremendous and has helped us tap into the external expertise and capabilities of innovators around the globe as we continually evolve our connected innovation program”.