The Georgia Peanut Commission wants to know what the next great peanut product looks like, and it’s putting up $10,000 to find out.
The commission recently launched the Georgia Peanut Innovation Award, its first contest of this kind, open to food entrepreneurs whose products center on Georgia peanuts. Entries can target either human or animal consumption and can range from an idea still in the prototype stage to something already on store shelves, as long as it has been on the market for less than a year.
“Peanuts have always been unique,” said Taylor Arnold, executive director of the Georgia Peanut Commission. “They’re one of the most affordable sources of protein, and they conserve water, improve soil health and are a zero-waste plant, making them perfectly suited for the future. It’s only fitting they also should inspire some unique ideas when it comes to new products.”
How to enter
Entrants can apply by filling out an official form at gapeanuts.com. The deadline to submit is Aug. 20. After an internal review, five finalists will present their ideas to a panel of business professionals drawn from agriculture, finance, education, retail and product development, a mix meant to test whether a product idea can actually survive contact with the market and not just sound good on paper.
Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper and Georgia Peanut Commission chairman Donald Chase will hand over the $10,000 prize at the Sunbelt Ag Expo on Oct. 22 in Moultrie, Ga., one of the largest farm shows in the Southeast and a fitting stage for a contest built on the state’s signature crop.
A crop built for the moment
The contest is landing in a state that all but owns the category. Georgia grows more than half of the peanuts produced in the United States, more than every other state combined, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That dominance has held for years, but the commission is betting the next chapter for the crop is not in the field, but on the shelf, in whatever product a home cook, a food scientist, or an entrepreneur with a good idea can dream up.
There is no restriction on category or price point, only that the product has to use peanuts and has to be new, either still in development or on the market for less than a year. For an industry normally measured in acres planted and pounds harvested, the award is a rare invitation to treat the crop as the start of a product line rather than a commodity, and a sign that Georgia’s peanut growers are as interested in what happens after harvest as what happens in the field.
