18 November 2024

Interview: Food for thought

A longstanding career in applied science and innovation has made John Colreavy expertly qualified for his current role as Director for Meat Technology Ireland (MTI). He spoke to TResearch about the important relationship between science and industry, and MTI’s unique offering.

As MTI’s director, John Colreavy enjoys bringing  together science and industry, tackling some of the biggest challenges the food sector faces today. Photo credit: John Ohle

Could you tell us about your career beginnings?

My first introduction to science and commercial enterprise was in the UK in the mid-’80s, at ICI. This gave me valuable insight into science’s role in commercial enterprise and innovation, and in sectoral issues – be they commercial, regulatory or environmental. All of which we now see coming together in the food sector.

During my time in the UK, working across various leading industrial firms and completing my doctorate in tandem, I was able to keep to this throughline of science and innovation in a business setting. Crucially, this applied science angle had a strong focus on product and product performance.

In 1998, I returned to Ireland, joining a state agency working at a national competence centre for paints and coatings in Ireland. This setting had a wider reach for potential product applications, giving me a broader view of science’s role in industry.

What was the genesis of MTI?

The first step towards what I do now was when the government decided to rationalise its laboratories. I was given a secondment to take the competence centre out to Dublin Institute of Technology (what is now TU Dublin) and to build a centre around all the elements you need for the applied science market. This was built around three pillars: commercial consultancy work; R&D projects sponsored by industry; and our first steps into the academic space, training PhDs and publishing research work.

When my secondment ended in 2012, the agency asked me back to fulfil a role of my choosing; this ended up being as a development advisor for food companies, particularly meat processors. A key topic was that meat companies wanted a scientific centre of competence; they weren’t sure what it would look like, but the dairy sector had already done it, so there was precedent.

I was tasked with working collectively with meat companies, and the wider sector, to develop, design and build the centre. This is where MTI came from. I was calling upon the agency’s models which had worked well in dairy and other sectors such as pharmaceuticals and electronics, but I was also bringing in all my industry experience of the “why” of applied science to suggest that the sector needed a competence centre of this type.

An external provider came in to help the sector configure a joined-up research programme. This level of research collaboration between companies was unusual, so they needed to trust the model as to how intellectual property would be handled, and what control they’d have over the programme and dealing with their own competitive tensions. Having a well-prepared model from Enterprise Ireland that had previous success in other sectors helped instil confidence.

What is MTI’s remit?

Enterprise Ireland was very keen to foster co-opetition, or cooperative competition. This means that not only are Irish beef processors competing domestically, but Irish beef is competing in global markets, and you thus want to have high confidence and shared competence across all processors who are supplying those markets. Considering that, what should be addressed by a centre’s research programme?

Industry members chose the five main topics as:

• Genetics and breeding, and thus meat quality.
• Food safety and shelf life.
• Digitalisation and a digital future.
• Meat and health and nutrition.
• The circular economy – minimising waste, maximising value.

What does the day-to-day look like?

We schedule our projects a quarter in advance, according to milestones and deliverables, or to certain issues we’re trying to address. Every month, industry members and lead scientists come together to discuss projects and present results.

This puts the relevant companies in the room alongside the centre’s management and lead research scientists. You’re discussing results and seeing whether there’s commercial opportunity in them. Each project gets presented twice a year so that we can track its progress; is it still relevant? Is it still working the way we want? What do we need to do differently?

We also have a separate, dedicated IP committee of specialists from industry and research-performing organisations, for looking at patents and licences. If a company spots an opportunity in the research, they’re able to jump on it early.

John sees MTI’s model – melding approaches from research and commerce – as increasingly necessary to keep pace with innovation. Photo credit: John Ohle

What makes MTI unique?

Something that distinguishes us from similar innovation/enterprise projects is that we’re structured like a company. We have a steering committee, who are essentially the board; we have stakeholders from the funding agency, universities and industry. We are ISO9001-certified, which is a quality management standard – so we’re expected to continuously improve our business processes and we are beholden to our steering committee to deliver results and improvements.

It’s challenging bringing together companies and research bodies that would normally be competing against each other, and to acknowledge and facilitate these different cultures and ways of working. Keeping that consortium together requires that you run and deliver a contract that’s predictable, transparent and fair to all. This type of cross-collaboration is essential across global, diverse multinationals.

How has the approach to innovation changed over time?

In industry, organisations historically had large R&D budgets and well-populated labs. Now, they tend to say: rate of change is too fast, it’s a resource-heavy area, how do you ensure you have qualified people?

Large global organisations began to understand that they needed to reach out to research institutions to collaborate. They wanted to tap into global research collaboration as well as bringing their own processes to bear in solving problems – especially as commerce and industry, and their challenges, become more global. There’s been a natural move towards partnering with research organisations. The space that MTI fills – as an interface between commercial/academic – is becoming more normal.

What key challenges is MTI tackling?

Our biggest challenge in the food sector is around sustainability and sustainable production. MTI’s first phase was mainly about determining what the issues were that the consortium could work on together. This got us up and running with the fundamentals of meat science, in addition to new concepts around digitalisation and harnessing genetics.

Now, we’re halfway through phase 2, which is fundamentally about sustainable beef production systems; validating these systems, and positioning Ireland as a global leader in this area. Part of this is the digitalisation theme; how can digital tools improve the meat processing sector, what does the future ‘digital factory’ look like?

There’s lots of pressure on the industry – sustainability concerns, the methane questions. Our core programme is focused on fundamental questions affecting everyone across the sector. Because it’s so targeted, and brings together leading researchers and the industry, it can tackle beef sustainability in a validated way.

Can you give us an overview of MTI’s phases?

Phase 1 started with genetics, because Ireland has the world’s largest animal breeding genetics database at farm level. MTI has now brought together that data with commercial enterprises and factories for a new understanding of sustainability.

Meat quality will always be a topic. This is something that the Irish sector is constantly improving on, decade on decade, post-BSE. MTI helps harness this improvement in terms of sharing best practice.

Food safety is likewise a recurring concern. If you move into other markets, outside Europe for example, there will be different food safety requirements, and different supply chain requirements. This ties into sustainability; new food systems may seem more sustainable, but do they meet safety and supply chain requirements?

The nutrition theme is about driving science-based – rather than anecdotal – public dialogue. Giving consumers the scientific facts they need to make choices around their diet. Finally, circular economy is about moving towards greater valorisation of co-products.

Up close and personal

What inspires you outside of work?

If I wasn’t doing this, I would for sure be a musician; I love listening to and performing a range of music, everything from traditional Irish music to opera. I have always enjoyed painting, too, and I read deeply in classics and philosophy. I think it’s important to invest in those other aspects of yourself to stay inspired and passionate and bring that to your science work.

Phase 2 goes into looking at the carbon footprint of beef production, looking at all inputs along the chain, including animals’ age to slaughter, their methane outputs – elements that tie directly back into the genetics question. A core strategic direction is finding the right balance in age-to-slaughter.

The second area is a digital future. Bringing together farm data with our consortium gives us datasets on an unprecedented global scale. By adding our work to what Teagasc is doing, we can answer questions no one else can answer. Previously, the industry relied on modelled data – now we can model our own system with our own hard data.

What do you enjoy most about this work?

Getting a problem to solve, with tangible results. It frustrates me when scientists put up their research and get little real engagement. So, I enjoy facilitating the relationship between science and industry to collectively solve problems and identify innovations. Everyone has a responsibility in this knowledge transfer: science to communicate it and commerce to act on it. I think it’s exciting that Ireland is uniquely positioned to tackle this area. 

Acknowledgements 

MTI is funded by Enterprise Ireland under the Technology Centre programme in collaboration with beef processors Ashbourne Meat Processors, Liffey Meats, Dawn Meats, ABP Food Group and Kepak.