Funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)‘s flagship Strength in Places Fund to the tune of £21 million, the Digital Dairy Chain (DDC) project will provide a boost to south-west Scotland and Cumbria, creating over 600 new jobs and adding £60 million to the annual output of the local economy. In doing so, the project will renew and decarbonise the area’s dairy industry, which every year produces 1.9 billion litres of milk.
Digital Dairy Chain is led by Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) and supported by consortium partners CENSIS, the universities of Strathclyde and the West of Scotland, First Milk, Lactalis McLelland, Kendal Nutricare, Cows and Co Group, National Milk Records, and SmartSTEMs. Over five years, DDC will:
- deliver advanced manufacturing processes to create a fully integrated and traceable supply chain
- help businesses to develop new products and explore new markets
- provide opportunities for research and business innovation in advanced, sustainable, high-value dairy processing
- help the dairy industry to develop and introduce technologies for sensing and data handling, as well as infrastructure to support innovation
Where CENSIS will lead
With a track record in innovation support, CENSIS will lead and deliver a multi-year accelerator programme as part of Digital Dairy. The first intake will happen in autumn 2022 and is designed to help individuals, start-ups and established companies in the region to fast track ideas from proof of concept to demonstration and testing. Accelerator winners will receive a tailored six-month support package to deliver products, processes or services to help the consortium partners build their digital capability and meet net zero targets.
About Strength in Places Fund
Strength in Places Fund is a UKRI fund helping areas of the UK to build on existing strengths in research and innovation to deliver benefits for their local economy. You can view all the projects funded by the Strength in Places Fund across the UK and watch this short video about the digital dairy project.