Dairy Innovation Australia Ltd
Dairy Innovation Australia is the innovation centre for dairy manufacturing R&D bringing together a critical mass of skills and expertise. It is funded through an industry membership structure that includes Dairy Australia and the major dairy manufacturers who account for over 70 per cent of Australian milk production.
Dairy Australia is the centre’s largest investor and led its formation through the merger of the Dairy Process Engineering Centre, Australian Starter Culture Research Centre, UHT Centre, Australian Cheese Technology Program, and Dairy Ingredients Group of Australia.
Dairy Innovation Australia will invest more than $15 million of member funds over the next three years to generate innovations in bulk processing and bulk ingredients, functional foods and ingredients, and cheese starters and fermented products.
Objectives
The principal objectives of Dairy Innovation Australia are to:
- Act as the focal point for Australian dairy manufacturing science, technology and innovation.
- Deliver a strong integrated R&D capability that contributes to global competitiveness, innovation capacity and market responsiveness of its dairy company members and the dairy industry as a whole.
- Lead the industry in the discovery and delivery of commercially valuable outcomes from targeted dairy manufacturing research.
Areas of Expertise
Small teams of highly qualified scientific staff skilled in process engineering and design, food technology and applications, health and nutrition, microbiology and ingredients and components sciences lead focussed programs of discovery and delivery in collaboration with industry members and research providers.
Membership
Dairy Innovation Australia’s membership represents companies that process over 70 per cent of the milk in Australia and 65 per cent of all manufactured dairy products as well as companies committed to funding dairy research.
- Dairy Australia
- Geoffrey Gardiner Foundation
- Bega Cheese
- Burra Foods Australia
- Dairy Farmers
- Murray Goulburn Co-operative Co. Ltd
- National Foods
- Parmalat Australia
- Tatura Milk Industries
- Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory
- Fonterra (member only of the Health and Nutrition Consortium)
Activities and Investment
Dairy Innovation Australia is a responsive and cost effective catalyst for innovation. The company invests membership funds and leverages external funding to deliver knowledge, know how, intellectual property, specialist resources research capability and infrastructure. Activities span the whole dairy production value chain. Innovation is discovered and developed through research investment, research and research management, delivered to members through knowledge management activities and a collaborative communication strategy, accessed by members through contract research, training and education, commercial services and products, strategic alliances and IP management.
Projects
Projects range from short-term scoping studies to large scale, longer-term multi-disciplined projects in line with members and industry priorities for the future. The company aims to invest in technology platforms that deliver a range of different commercial opportunities. Commercial outcomes at looked for at every stage of any project. Processes have been developed to allow companies to access services and capabilities either confidentially or collaboratively to develop such opportunities.
The relevancy of its work is constantly reviewed. Project planning is continuously informed and revised in response to strategic direction developed with its members and providers through collaborative foresight and scenario planning, ideas generation and evaluation and the development of innovation systems.
Contact
Phone: +61 (03) 9974 8700, Fax: +61 (03) 9974 8777, Web: www.dairyinnovation.com.au