French Kit a bien manger is doing for Paris what Leaping Salmon did so well for London until they sadly disappeared: delivering semi-ready meals to busy urbanites, who want to dine well, but don't care for the shopping and chopping.

Deliveries include all the ingredients for a stylish dinner, and cooking instructions. Part-time gourmands put it all together and get the satisfaction of having prepared their own fresh starters, entrees, and desserts.

Prices charged rival those at top-end restaurants, and reflect the fact that Kit a bien manger is sourcing its ingredients from exclusive purveyors, going after moneyed professionals looking for a proper insperience. Needless to say, customers can choose from a wide range of wines to accompany their meals (which is, as every food expert knows, where you make the real margins).

Kit a bien manger currently delivers in the 5th, 6th, 7th, 14th and 15th arrondisements, charging EUR 8 for delivery. Kits can also be purchased in their own 'boutique' on the Rue du Cherche Midi.

Entrepreneurs interested in emulating Kit's business model should also take a look at recently featured Mobo, and other food & beverage ideas: there's no end to innovation when it comes to feeding big cities around the world. Start your own Kit a bien manger, or if you're working at a FMCG company, partner with these people to add a bit of tryvertising-love. However, do study the Leaping Salmon business case: an idea that makes total sense should still be executed in a financially prudent manner!

Website: http://www.kitabienmanger.com
Contact: cath@kitabienmanger.fr

Sipahh, a new twist on the traditional straw, is filled with naturally flavoured beads that dissolve and impart flavour to cold white milk as it is sipped through the Sipahh.

As the tagline says, “Insert into cold milk, Sip, and say Ahh!” Sipahh straws come in six fun flavours (Strawberry, Chocolate, Caramel, Banana, Toffee Apple, Cookies and Cream and Choc Mint), contain no artificial preservatives or colouring and less than half a teaspoon of sugar. Each straw flavours 250-300 ml of cold milk.

Sipahh is a clever way to encourage children to drink milk. It's healthier and cheaper than flavoured milks, revives the appeal of straws and gives children a fun new way to experience milk. Sold in a large number of supermarkets and convenience stores in Australia and New Zealand, the milk flavouring straws were also recently launched in McDonald's restaurants in South Africa.

The straws were created by Australian Unistraw, which is also developing energy straws for athletes, vitamin-enhanced straws, and medicinal and pharmaceutical straws that will improve medication delivery to patients who have difficulty swallowing pills. Sipahh is the company's first foray onto the commercial market, and has won a number of awards.

A convenient and playful way to get children to drink more milk? Sounds like something school cafeterias should sell instead of sugar-laden fizzy drinks. And how about adult versions, like coffee-flavoured straws for a homemade iced-latte? Snap up distribution rights for your region!

Website: www.sipahh.com / www.unistraw.com
Contact: mort@sipahh.com / partner@unistraw.com

Giving them priority access, Mobo lets customers order from restaurants and pay for meals using sms.

How it works? Customers create an account, which includes their credit card details. After signing up for the service, they can order online via www.gomobo.com, or by text message/sms. The order appears on the restaurant's in-store Mobo system, and is automatically billed to the customer's credit card. The restaurant confirms the order, and the customer receives a text message stating when the order will be ready for pick up.

Every Mobo restaurant has a separate Mobo Pick Up counter, so when their order is ready, Mobo users can walk straight to the counter, state their name and last four digits of their phone number, and pick up their food. For those customers that can't leave the office, Mobo also delivers.

Since complicated orders (medium rare, hold the mayo) are cumbersome to order by text message, users can store their favourites in their online account, simplifying the procedure to just texting a corresponding number to Mobo.

According to Mobo, the benefits for partnering restaurants are increased profits from new Mobo customers, higher average order amounts, increased customer loyalty and improved operating efficiency. Mobo, which launched in May 2006, currently works with over a dozen restaurants in New York City, with more to join soon. The company is also developing platforms for other services that involve people standing in line, such as transportation and entertainment.

Customers save time (which IS the new currency), get a bit of that oh so coveted VIP treatment with their takeaways, and vendors increase profits. Now that mobile phones are truly ubiquitous, and ordering takeaways online is no longer a novelty, this concept should work well anywhere!

Website:http://www.gomobo.com
Contact: info@gomobo.com & (212) 260-0895

Following the popularity of US-based Threadless, the ongoing t-shirt design competition that urges users to submit t-shirt designs, a European version has just sprung up.

Like Threadless, Derby is a design competition. Members of the public can send in designs, which are given 10 days to be scored by Derby's visitors. The designs with the highest scores are printed on high-quality t-shirts and sold through the site's shop, and the winner gets GBP 350 / EUR 500.

Similar initiatives exist in France (La Fraise), Germany (Cyroline) and The Netherlands (Buutvrij), but Derby is the first pan-European player, and was launched in English, German and French. Besides selling winning t-shirts online, Derby has also opened a real-world shop on the Gabelsberger Street in Berlin.

Derby was created by Spreadshirt, a large German print-on-demand company that lets users design and print their own t-shirts and other merchandise, and sell them on their own Spreadshirt pages.

As always, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And a good idea will work almost anywhere. Which is why we spend our days spotting and sharing them ;-) Now, how about a global website that offers the best customer-made t-shirts from around the world?

Website: http://derby.spreadshirt.net
Contact: info@spreadshirt.net

Slowly but surely, established brands are climbing aboard the customer-made bandwagon, inviting consumers to co-create. But as our sister-site trendwatching.com predicted a while ago, true co-creation can only blossom if brands share revenues resulting from consumer generated content with those same consumers. Which is why we like Vodafone Netherlands' new KijkMij TV (Look at Me TV) initiative, which not only involves customers uploading their funniest, sexiest or most informative (cameraphone) videos, but also pays these minipreneurs 10% of revenues generated when other customers download their video.*

How it works: Vodafone customers shoot their own videos, using a camera or a cameraphone, and upload them to the KijkMij TV channel. Videos will appear in one of the following categories: Erotica (Babes and Hunks), Bizarre, Holidays, Stunts, and 'I love...', and can be viewed via Vodafone's Live service. Downloads will cost 25 euro cents, meaning every viewed video will net the owner 2.5 cents. By uploading a video, participants are automatically assigned an account tied to their mobile phone number. Using PayPal's MassPay, Vodafone pays out accrued earnings when accounts surpass EUR 10 (which equals 400 downloads).

Two and a half cents may not sound overwhelming, but if online videos and their viral effects on the web are anything to go by, there is always the promise of a sudden 100,000 or even 1,000,000 downloads for the truly crazy or sexy, even if downloads aren't free. After all – we're putting our bets on KijkMij's erotica category – sex sells! Only spoiler: Vodafone won't allow 'anything naked below the belt' ;-)

* A similar program was launched in the UK last Fall, by mobile media company ''3: 'performers' get 1 pence per download.

We've said it before: the customer-made phenomenon is a dream come true for entrepreneurs: instead of having to cook up new goods, services and experiences for your customers, you let them do the work. Just make sure you share the profits, or no one will want to play with you.

For more examples, from the stingy to the generous, check out customer-made.

Website: http://www.vodafone.nl/Prive/Vodafonelive/fifawk