Over £2m funding for Northern Irish food innovators
Food companies in Northern Ireland are being encouraged to invest in new products by way of a £2.3 million technology competition. The innovation-focused competition is funded by Innovate UK (previously the Technology Strategy Board) and Invest Northern Ireland, the UK region's business development agency.
The competition encourages food firms to form Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) to help them to come up with new ideas. The initiative is also backed by the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) at Loughry, near Cookstown in county Tyrone.
A KTP involves a partnership between a business, an academic institution and a recently qualified person, known as a KTP Associate focusing on a strategic project for a business to deliver real outcomes.
Professor Chris Elliott, Director of the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen's University, Belfast and the UK Government advisor on food safety, who is also backing the initiative, says: "The agri-food industry is important to our local economy and there are major global business opportunities waiting to be grasped.
"Through collaboration with our academic communities to access knowledge and expertise, companies can position themselves for faster growth. We are about the development of innovative products and processes, improving the safety, quality and authenticity of supply chains and linking our agriculture and food graduates with local industry. KTP is the perfect vehicle for this."
The current KTP competition encompasses three high-level challenges and project proposals must address at least one: innovating to benefit consumer health, wellbeing and choice; improving productivity, resource efficiency and resilience in the supply chain; and, assuring safety and security across the supply chain.