At a dinner held last night (Thursday 27 April) at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester, the Milk Development Council presented prizes worth £7,000 to the winners of their annual Awards for Dairy Innovation. The winners included Dairy Crest, the Cornish Cheese Company, Sandyknowe Farm, Connect Plus Ltd and Dr David Armstrong, who received their awards from celebrated inventor and innovator Trevor Bayliss.
Established in 2001, in honour of David Hall, the awards celebrate innovation in dairy development. Kevin Bellamy, chief executive of the Milk Development Council (MDC) said: "These awards provide us with a great opportunity to shout about the exciting developments taking place in our industry and showcase award-winning products, services and businesses to retailers and consumers.
We need to promote UK dairy to new customers and markets and discovering and rewarding innovation is critical to the progression of the UK dairy industry and has to be a positive move for all."
Liz Broadbent, the MDC's marketing director said: "The awards have been a resounding success again this year. The judging panel had to contend with an increase in the number and quality of entries. The standard of the entries was extremely high and made the task of shortlisting and finding category winners a formidable one."
All entries were judged by a panel of industry leaders and supporters of the UK dairy industry including; Charles Abel of Farmers Weekly; distinguished inventor Trevor Bayliss; John Beckett, president-elect of the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF); Richard Clarke of The Grocer; Vickie Rogers of the Farmers Guardian and Brian Peacock, Chairman of the MDC.
This year the MDC introduced new categories covering innovations in food and beverage product development and marketing initiatives as well as retaining the David Hall award for on-farm business development and an award for outstanding contribution to the dairy industry.
The winner in each category received a Dartington Crystal trophy and a cash prize to support continued product and business development.
