UofL team wins venture competition

For the second time in two years, a team of University of Louisville graduate entrepreneurship students has won the Alltech Innovation Competition for an idea that saves money for restaurants. The KYchen team took first prize April 9 in the graduate division of the Alltech Innovation Competition 2016, which was held in Lexington. The UofL team was competing against three other Kentucky universities. KYchen won $10,000 for its business that helps restaurants save money through better management of cooking oil. The business would help restaurants reduce cooking oil-related costs by more than 50 percent through a patent-protected oil filtration and transport device and related services. A UofL team also won the competition in 2014 with restaurant-related idea: Trifecta Cooking Equipment featured a patented deep fryer designed to save restaurants 40 percent of their annual cooking costs. KYchen is made up of three students pursuing MBA degrees in entrepreneurship who were advised by Suzanne Bergmeister, UofL’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence. The students are Tedd Pollard, Aaron Searcy and Sanjay Singh. The Alltech Innovation Competition started in 2013. Competitions for 2013 and 2014 were held in Kentucky and Ireland. Last year, a competition was added in India. Sharon Kerrick, assistant director of the Forcht Center for Entrepreneurship at the College of Business, was emcee for the 2016 program.