The centre is supported by a €7.5m grant from Enterprise Ireland.
Food manufacturer Kerry Group has today (14 February) announced a new Digital Centre of Excellence to be established at its Global Innovation Centre in Naas, Co Kildare. Kerry Group, which was founded in 1972 and is headquartered in Tralee, Co Kerry, is a taste and nutrition partner for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical sectors.
Activities at the new location, which is supported by a €7.5m grant from Enterprise Ireland, will focus on enhancing business performance and productivity through digital enablement initiatives in areas such as R&D, commercialisation, operations and global business services. The company plans to utilise advanced generative AI to improve processes and build upon stakeholder partnerships.
Over the past 12-18 months, the organisation has been trialling a range of digital programmes and plans to upscale deployment and enable digital excellence initiatives over the next two years.
Shane McGibney, the chief business transformation officer at Kerry Group, said: “The Digital Centre of Excellence creates exciting opportunities to accelerate our business. The initiative represents a new aspect of transformation at Kerry. We appreciate Enterprise Ireland’s support and the agency’s ongoing engagement with Kerry over many years.”
Jenny Melia, the executive director at Enterprise Ireland, also commented, saying: “Enterprise Ireland has supported this development under the Research, Development and Innovation Fund, which supports investment in large-scale transformation projects to increase company competitiveness and further places Ireland as a market leader in innovation.
“Enterprise Ireland is proud to support this new Centre of Excellence at the Kerry Global Innovation Centre in Kildare and we remain committed to supporting Irish companies like Kerry on their innovation agenda to further build on the resilience and competitiveness of the Irish food sector.”
In 2022, Kerry Group significantly expanded its manufacturing capabilities with the acquisition of two biotechnology companies based in Germany and Mexico.
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