Research and development partnerships
| PROGRAM OBJECTIVE | KPIs | OUTCOMES | BENEFITS | FUTURE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Increase industry’s R&D investment, innovation culture and capability |
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A diverse portfolio
Our fully-owned subsidiary, MLA Donor Company Limited (MDC), provides a vehicle for attracting commercial investment in innovation from individual enterprises. Since its inception in 1999, the R&D partnership program has approved 340 projects with a total budget of $142 million.
The program has continued to evolve with support and engagement from all sectors with 61 new R&D partnership projects approved amounting to an investment of $24m this year. The portfolio of projects is diverse:
- smart trace – a real time cold chain tracking system
- RTL leap boning technology (see here for more details)
- a retail technology system – providing retail butchers with the latest point-of-sale technology to manage their business and maximise red meat sales; and providing MLA with national real time sales data via our retail portal
- the tenderometer – an MLA and Meat & Wool New Zealand collaboration bringing together advanced electrical stimulation and G2, which objectively measures tenderness and other eating quality attributes of the cooked product
Uptake of proven commercialisation projects has been successful, including: the installation of electrical stimulation technology to reduce variability in eating quality in 10 plants; two additional Pelt-o-matics installed in Australian plants; 40 outlets using our retail technology; and the bovine lipoprotein bioactive Lipimax used as a growth medium by pharmaceutical companies, now successfully exported in a $100m global market.
It is anticipated that collaborative innovation strategies will become the dominant model for future MDC activity. This approach has been trialled over the past three years and is effective in:
- building relationships and gaining enterprise commitment
- building capability
- enabling more effective engagement with industry by MLA program managers
There is no one-size-fits-all model, rather a tailored approach over three to five years that builds on the development of innovative products, processes and new business models.
The overall objectives of the program continue to be:
- To significantly increase the level of enterprise investment in innovation in the Australian red meat industry.
- To significantly enhance the outcomes of commercially focussed innovation thereby ensuring quantifiable commercial returns to individual enterprises and ultimately to the industry overall.
- To significantly increase the number of successful commercialisations thereby adding to the quantum of innovations available to the industry.
- To achieve commercial returns for MDC [where appropriate], which can be reinvested in programs and projects that grow the level of profitable innovation within the industry.
- To undertake research and development with individual enterprises to increase the innovation capability of the Australian red meat Industry.
Supporting an innovation culture
The development of an innovation culture and capability for the industry is promoted and supported through several complementary initiatives using the MDC funding mechanism. See adoption and capacity for more information.