Tag: #kerry

Rachel Coughlan Wins Kerry Sustainable Nutrition Award at Stripe Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition

Kerry, a global leader in taste and nutrition solutions, has presented the Kerry Sustainable Nutrition Award at this year’s Stripe Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, recognising outstanding student innovation in sustainable nutrition.

The Kerry Sustainable Nutrition Award was presented by Catherine Keogh, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Kerry, to Rachel Coughlan, Moate Community School Westmeath, for her innovative project developing a biodegradable chewing gum made sustainably from Irish-grown resources.

The award celebrates projects that demonstrate scientific innovation in sustainable nutrition – solutions that help maintain good health while ensuring future generations can meet their nutritional needs, without compromising the health of the planet.

Kerry is a proud Silver Sponsor of this year’s Stripe Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, supporting the future of innovation in Ireland. This award aligns with the company’s Beyond the Horizon sustainability strategy and its vision to reach more than two billion people with sustainable nutrition solutions by 2030.

Presenting the award, Catherine Keogh said: “Rachel truly exemplifies Kerry’s values and our vision for sustainable nutrition. This award recognises young scientists who are developing innovative, science-led solutions that are better for people, better for society, and better for the planet – reducing environmental impact, improving health outcomes, and ensuring responsible sourcing and production. The quality, creativity and ambition on display at this year’s Stripe Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition has been exceptional, reinforcing our belief that Ireland’s future as a global hub for scientific innovation is bright.”

The award was open across multiple scientific categories and age groups, with projects assessed on innovation, scientific rigour, sustainability impact, clarity of communication and real-world feasibility.

Snacking with less salt, AI-powered food safety – Young Scientist Exhibition

Kerry is to showcase the latest science underpinning advances in sustainable nutrition at this year’s Stripe Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition.

The company, a global leader in specialist ingredients for the food and beverage sector, is a Silver Sponsor of the event and will present the Kerry Sustainable Nutrition Award, recognising outstanding student projects that demonstrate scientific innovation in sustainable nutrition.

From January 7–10 at the RDS, Kerry experts will be on hand to provide key insights on   pressing global food challenges, from coffee and chocolate supply issues to sodium reduction and AI-driven food safety solutions.

Attendees will have a chance to step into the world of sustainable nutrition at Stand 113, where Kerry brings science to life through five interactive experiences, showing how innovation creates real-world impact for consumers and the planet.

 

  1. Great taste with less salt

With global sodium intake exceeding twice the WHO recommendation, reducing salt without compromising on taste remains a significant industry challenge. Kerry will showcase how its TasteSense™ Salt technology enables up to 60% sodium reduction while maintaining flavour and food safety. Visitors can experience a live tasting demo comparing standard crisps with reduced-salt alternatives – seeing first-hand how healthier snacks can still taste great.

 

  1. Improving Human Healthspan 

Healthspan is about living better, not just longer – at Kerry’s stand attendees will see how science can provide dietary solutions to proactively boast wellness over a lifetime. Kerry experts will highlight science-backed solutions supporting stress reduction, immune health, gut health, and skin wellness, tailored to age and gender needs. The showcase will feature clinically validated ingredients including Sensoril® Ashwagandha, Wellmune®, BC30™, and Plenibiotic™, which support energy, resilience, and long-term wellbeing.

 

  1. AI- Powered Food Safety

Unsafe food remains a global health challenge. Kerry will demonstrate how its AI-driven predictive model analyses thousands of data points to anticipate food safety risk, reduce analysis time by 80%, accelerate development by up to 10 months, and deliver safer food solutions to market, faster.

 

4. Cracking the Cocoa Crisis 

Chocolate is a timeless favourite, but cocoa supply is under threat from crop disease, climate change, and soaring prices. Visitors will discover how Kerry’s Cocoa Boosters enable up to 50% cocoa powder reduction without compromising an indulgent taste. These solutions help manufacturers manage costs and deliver the chocolate experience consumers love, sustainably.

 

  1. (Still) Getting the Caffeine Kick 

Coffee lovers expect rich flavour, but roasting can create acrylamide, a potential carcinogen. Kerry’s Acrylerase® enzyme reduces acrylamide in target applications by up to 90% post-roast, without changing production processes. The result: advanced consumer health, regulatory compliance, and sustainability. Kerry’s interactive experience on this issue – close to any coffee lover’s heart – will highlight how innovation can protect both taste and wellbeing.

Catherine Keogh, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Kerry said: “Kerry’s partnership with the Stripe Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition is both an exciting initiative and a natural fit. Science and technology are at the heart of everything we do. From our roots in Irish dairy to leading the way in sustainable taste and nutrition, our 1,200 scientists are creating innovations that make food healthier, tastier, and more sustainable. This sponsorship is about inspiring the next generation of innovators who will tackle some of the world’s biggest food challenges.” 

The Kerry Sustainable Nutrition Award aligns with Kerry’s Beyond the Horizon sustainability strategy and its ambition to deliver sustainable nutrition solutions to more than two billion people by 2030.

Ørsted and EnergyCloud turn excess green energy into free hot water for Kerry residents

Leading renewable energy company Ørsted today announced a partnership with the charity EnergyCloud to provide up to 100 homes in Kerry with free hot water through surplus renewable energy from its wind farms in Kilgarvan.

Through Ørsted’s community benefit fund, EnergyCloud, working in partnership with Kerry County Council, will provide free hot water to the homes that are geographically nearest to Ørsted’s wind farms, dependent on tenant sign-up.  EnergyCloud will heat the home’s water tank during times of energy curtailment through smart immersion technology, with homes under Kerry County Council’s stock eligible for the scheme. Ørsted will provide approximately €500 per home to the initiative.

TJ Hunter, Vice President Onshore, Ireland and the UK said: “Our community benefit is all about supporting local communities for the long term. Partnering with EnergyCloud is a great example of how we can make that happen. By using surplus renewable energy, we’re helping households in need. It’s proof that renewable energy can do more than just power homes, it supports communities.”

Alan Wyley, CEO of EnergyCloud Ireland said: “We’re delighted to partner with Ørsted Onshore Ireland and Kerry County Council on this trial that will make a real difference to people’s lives. This is a simple but effective way to provide an essential service like hot water, while making better use of Ireland’s renewable resources. We hope this initiative will drive others to do similar projects”.

The initiative supplies homes with smart immersion controllers, enabling free overnight hot water heating during periods of surplus renewable energy. This will be EnergyCloud’s first project in county Kerry and builds on its existing collaborations with local authorities and approved housing bodies in counties including Offaly, Cork, Galway, and Limerick.

Ørsted has three operational wind farms in the Kilgarvan area – Kilgarvan, Sillahertane, and Inchincoosh – which have a combined generating capacity of 86 MW of green electricity across 38 turbines, enough to power more than 53,000 homes annually.

Having already operated in the area since 2007, Ørsted has also started the Kilgarvan Repower project, which will replace 28 turbines, totalling 77.5 MW, with up to 11 more modern machines. These existing wind farms, located northeast of Kilgarvan village, have been operational since 2007 and 2009.

This year, €86,000 has been made available for Kerry communities in through Ørsted’s Community Benefit Fund. Community groups and initiatives such as, Kilgarvan Central School and Kilgarvan GAA Club have previously received funding from this initiative.

Advise AI investment surpasses €8M as it launches GenAI agent for brands

Advise, the automated data, analytics and AI platform provider helping retail manufacturers and brand-owners to unlock revenues and margin growth, today launches a new GenAI-powered agent. The expert GenAI assistant has been trained by Advise engineers to enhance customer decision-making, giving them competitive advantage. It represents an €8M investment by the Dublin-based company in the development of its AI platform.

Advise’s GenAI agent is a major update to the company’s AI-powered SaaS platform and can help brands to reach actionable insights 10X faster than previous methods. The platform collates and harmonises sales, inventory and customer data from multiple sources into a single platform. The Advise analytics engine filters out data noise, identifies key patterns and presents the most critical information in real-time. The customised GenAI agent further enhances this process by translating complex analytics into clear, natural language explanations and recommendations, turning statistical outputs into human-digestible insights.

The latest release was created by Advise’s Dublin-based engineering team, using a customised and trained large language model (LLM). While more widely available LLMs are typically limited to chatbot-style interactions, Advise’s agent moves beyond this. The GenAI agent has been trained to augment the role of the category manager – the expert responsible for understanding product performance and optimising new product, pricing and promotion strategies. In doing so, the platform empowers consumer-packaged goods (CPG) brands such as Kerry, Dr. Oetker, Pilgrim Food Masters, Tayto and Britvic, to take decisive action that will result in revenue growth.

Advise has programmed the customised GenAI agent to work from a structured set of instructions and best practices. With the ability to personalise its output according to each customer, it can detect market shifts, anticipate trends and deliver guided and relevant insights tailored to business needs. The agent also ranks, through a News Feed on the Advise platform, its insights based on relevance and urgency, ensuring users receive tailored, high-value recommendations on their next steps.

Kevin McCarthy, CEO, Advise, said: “Many businesses are still focusing on data collection and analytics, but we have moved beyond that. We have automated data processing and evolved GenAI to augment and act as a valuable assistant to category managers; turning data into insights and decisive actions that drive margin growth and competitive advantage.

“At Advise, we believe that the future of category management isn’t just about gathering more data; it’s about making smarter decisions, faster. Our new GenAI agent doesn’t just analyse; it anticipates. It learns, adapts, and prioritises what matters most for each brand, providing tailored recommendations that translates directly into growth. It enables users to move beyond spreadsheets and dashboards to proactive decision-making.”

 LLMs are hugely powerful and are impacting every industry, but their output is non-deterministic and they suffer from creative hallucinations. This can make them unsuitable for numeric and statistical analysis unless carefully managed. What we have created is the next generation of CPG decision-making: where you don’t just gain trustworthy information, but a strategic advantage using GenAI. In a world where speed and precision define success, this is how the best brands will stay ahead.”

The Innovation Exchange partners with RDI Hub to partner globally ambitious Kerry SMEs with large corporates

Skillnet Ireland has announced the partnership of The Innovation Exchange, with the RDI Hub (Research Development Innovation Hub) based in Killorglin, Co. Kerry.  The Innovation Exchange is Ireland’s innovation marketplace connecting large companies facing digital transformation challenges with technology companies that can fast-track the solution.

As the newest regional channel partner of The Innovation Exchange, the RDI Hub is a world-class centre for design-led, digital innovation located in Ireland’s South West.  It focuses on digitisation, ideation and commercialisation of innovation and research in the Digital, AI, Data and related technologies’ sectors. The RDI Hub is also part of the Fexco’s Innovation division and operates as a not-for-profit public-private partnership with Munster Technological University and Kerry County Council.

There are currently six companies signed up from Kerry; one corporate, Astellas, as well as five SMEs; Graphite Note, Quodos, Galarus, Salaso and Turtle Transformation. Cork-based, RDI hub member Perkforce is also signed up.

The initiative will allow globally ambitious tech SMEs located in Kerry the unique opportunity to pitch to, and collaborate with, large companies looking to access innovation as part of a diverse and curated community of startups and scaleups. As a part of this collaboration, the RDI Hub will bring both corporate entities and scale-up businesses situated in Kerry together as members of The Innovation Exchange, expanding its growing community.

Attending the launch, Norma Foley TD, Minister for Education and TD for Kerry, said: “Ambition in any field should be limitless, but for it to be limitless we must ensure that the right supports are in place. Today we launch The Innovation Exchange, an initiative of Skillnet Ireland. It gives an opportunity to provide a level of support which will be a catalyst for so many businesses to go further and to go beyond; there is great insight here, being provided by the experts. The spirit lauded by this new initiative and development is that together we can go further and further; limitless opportunity, limitless abilities being celebrated and given an opportunity to advance.”

Speaking at yesterday’s announcement, Paul Healy, Chief Executive, Skillnet Ireland said: “Today we see the Innovation Exchange developing its footprint in Kerry as part of our drive for a nationwide expansion of this successful programme. The Innovation Exchange is serving an important role in promoting innovation and economic growth in Ireland by building deep links between SMEs and large corporations, encouraging ideation and facilitating the development of new business projects between these sectors. We encourage local SMEs and larger companies with a presence in the South West to join the programme and take advantage of the many benefits it offers.” 

The aim of the Innovation Exchange is to establish a nationwide footprint by onboarding up to 10 regional channel partners throughout 2023. Earlier this year The Innovation Exchange announced its partnership with the Galway Technology Centre, which supports innovative, global trading companies in the ICT sector. The expansion of The Innovation Exchange, which currently has in excess of 350 participants, will offer even more SMEs access to the programme’s benefits, including an instant sales pipeline, market intelligence and the capability to sell to large companies

Conor Carmody, programme director of The Innovation Exchange commented on today’s news: “We are thrilled to be collaborating with RDI Hub, as we continue to bring our offering to SMEs and corporates across Ireland. Our main focus is to showcase the amazing talent and capabilities of the companies in the region, while also helping them to scale their businesses. We see this partnership with Skillnet Ireland as an opportunity to expand our network and leverage RDI Hub’s resources and expertise to support our members and drive their success.”

Liam Cronin, CEO of RDI, said: “The ethos at the RDI Hub is all about making connections for start-ups, scale-ups, SMEs, corporates, and enterprises to create, digitalise, innovate, and scale businesses for future economies. The Innovation Exchange is a perfect partnership for us as it supports the key focus of the RDI Hub   of creating new jobs, products, and services in the Southwest. This is a fantastic opportunity for agile companies to innovate and solve specific problems for large corporates, and for corporates to gain fresh perspectives on their business challenges.”

Bertie Murphy, Chief Strategy Officer Fexco and RDI Hub Board Director, said: “This new partnership between the RDI Hub and the Innovation Exchange creates a brilliant opportunity for innovation between SMEs and scaled businesses. This reinforces our vision at Fexco for the RDI Hub as a key enabler of innovation. We have already achieved success at the RDI Hub in creating an ecosystem that has generated exciting new technologies, services, and jobs. This announcement provides an opportunity for the RDI Hub to further build on that success and, in addition, facilitate the ability of SMEs to introduce innovative and transformative ideas and services to larger corporations in the region.” 

Skillnet Ireland has committed €5 million to fund The Innovation Exchange which is designed to address the barriers that exist for scaling companies when selling to large companies and multinationals. The programme will support over 1,000 companies between 2022-2025.

Scale-ups and corporates in the Kerry region are being encouraged by The Innovation Exchange to sign up at www.theinnovationexchange.ie.

Fexco Managed Services and TEKenable Strategic Partnership to Create 75 Jobs

Financial technology and business services company Fexco and digital services company, TEKenable have announced a strategic partnership to transform customers’ digital experience, invest in new services and create 75 new jobs as a result of this partnership by 2025.

The Fexco Managed Services and TEKenable partnership will see both organisations co-invest in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Products and Salesforce Cloud Solutions and Services aimed at improving their collective customers end-to-end experience across both Irish and UK markets.

This partnership combines TEKenable’s experience in providing Microsoft Dynamics 365 consultancy, development, and support services to their customers, with Fexco’s experience of premium operational delivery, customer management and process optimisation experts. This partnership will also see the creation of 75 new jobs by 2025, with roles created within Digital Customer Experience, Predictive Customer Behaviour Analysis, and Automation & Operational Efficiency services.

Martin Ryan, Managing Director of Fexco Managed Services & Advisory Services, “This partnership will help us build on our collective strengths, and deliver the perfect blend of premium operational expertise, support, and resources to maximise the potential of Microsoft Dynamics 365 in improving our customers’ digital end to end experience. This will see us and TEKenable collaborate across multiple sectors and reinforce our position as trusted advisors who deliver transformative services for our clients.”

Nick Connors, Managing Director, TEKenable “This partnership will see us work with Fexco Managed Services to bring solutions, products and services offerings that will fundamentally change the end-to-end experience of both our customers, and their customers,” said Nick Connors, Group Managing Director, TEKenable. “We predict that we will see growth from a combination of existing and new clients over the coming three years.”

TEKenable was founded in 2002 by Nick Connors and Peter Rose is an innovative technology company focused on delivering digital services through Low Code platforms to medium and large-scale enterprises in Ireland, UK and EMEA.

Kerry County Council first to trial carbon neutral truck. #Kerry #Scania #HGV #CarbonNeutral

Kerry County Council became the first local authority in Ireland to trial a zero carbon Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) powered by compressed renewable gas. The truck was supplied by Scania dealers, T. Nolan and Sons in Castleisland, and fuelled using carbon neutral renewable gas from the national gas network supplied by Gas Networks Ireland.

During the two-week trial, Kerry County Council used this clean transport solution to move road salt from Co. Tipperary.

Cathaoirleach of Kerry County Council, Cllr Patrick Connor-Scarteen said:

“Meeting Ireland’s climate target is a big challenge and transport is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise. We are delighted to do our bit in Kerry and trial trucks powered by renewable gas as a viable option to reduce our fleet emissions.”

 

While only 4% of vehicles on Ireland’s roads are classified as HGVs and buses, they account for 30% of all emissions in the road transport sector. Compressed natural gas (CNG) can reduce HGV well-to-wheel emissions by up to 23% (Cenex 2019) compared to diesel and deliver cost savings for operators of up to 35% (Cadent 2016).

However, as the volume of carbon neutral renewable gas on the national network increases into the future, hauliers and fleet operators who have made the switch to gas will increasingly reduce their carbon footprint without changing a thing.

Renewable gas is structurally identical to natural gas and compatible with the existing infrastructure, technology and vehicles. With locally supplied renewable gas now on the Irish network, gas is the affordable, proven and sustainable long-term solution for Ireland’s fleet managers and hauliers.

Gas Networks Ireland’s CNG Program Delivery Manager, Declan O’Sullivan, said:

“We are delighted that Kerry County Council has joined companies around Ireland in experiencing the emissions and cost savings associated with using both natural and renewable gas in HGVs.

“Gas Networks Ireland is on a journey to decarbonise the transport sector.  Renewable gas, which is entering the gas network today, enables carbon neutral transport, as CNG vehicles operating on natural gas today are future proofed for renewable gas.

“By delivering a network of CNG filling stations and enabling the introduction of renewable gas to the network, we are supporting hauliers and fleet operators to make a sustainable switch to a carbon neutral fuel.”

On March 1 Gas Networks Ireland announced a €2.9m CNG Vehicle Grant scheme to support the purchase of up to 400 gas-powered trucks, buses and vans and help drive a more sustainable transport sector.

The Grant will cover 20% of the difference between CNG and diesel-powered vehicles, capped at €5,000, with a maximum €60,000 available to any one applicant. Grants can be used towards the costs of vehicles registered from 2020.

The CNG Vehicle Fund is co-financed by the European Union’s TEN-T Programme under the Connecting Europe Facility as part of the Green Connect Project. Applications are now being accepted at www.gasnetworks.ie/cngvehiclegrant.