Richard Bruton T.D. Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation recently announced a second term of funding worth €21M for the functional foods Technology Centre, Food for Health Ireland (FHI). Details of the investment were made at the first Technology Centres Expo which was hosted jointly by Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland in Leopardstown, Dublin. FHI is one of 15 Technology Centres in the €100M Technology Centre Programme.
Promoting a healthy diet for a healthy life, FHI ‘mines’ milk to identify novel bioactive ingredients to develop functional foods which will offer health benefits to consumers. FHI is increasing its focus on infant nutrition, healthy cheese, sports drinks, ‘healthy aging’ drinks and products that can be used to manage Type 2 diabetes and obesity using the €21M it has received for its second research phase.
There are more than 300 companies in Ireland, both multinational and indigenous, engaged with the 15 Technology Centres currently in existence. These Technology Centres are industry-led research centres of excellence operating at the interface between industry and the academic environment to increase the generation of new, commercially viable knowledge into industry. They currently focus on developing new technologies in the areas of cloud, analytics and learning technologies; manufacturing and materials; energy; food and health and financial services and business processes.
Speaking at the Expo Julie Sinnamon, CEO Enterprise Ireland, said “Irish companies need to engage with these Technology Centres to get a competitive advantage by introducing more innovative technologies to their business which can reduce costs and assist in the development of new commercially viable products and services”.
“Like the other 14 Technology Centres that Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland support, the model that has proven successful for FHI is where a group of companies with similar development needs set the research agenda which is then delivered by the best researchers in the field.”
To find out more about the Technology Centres programme or to see how your company could get involved please click here.
