FDBusiness.com

Kerry Group, a global leader in taste and nutrition, has announced a new Digital Centre of Excellence, designed to increase operational efficiencies and enhance customer connectivity. The centre, which is being supported by a €7.5 million grant from Enterprise Ireland, will be located at Kerry’s Global Innovation Centre in Naas, County Kildare, and represents a continuation of Kerry’s successful approach to investing in technology and process enhancement to improve operational efficiency and capability.

The Centre of Excellence will focus on driving enhanced business performance and productivity through digital enablement initiatives across operations, R&D, commercial activities, and global business services. Advanced generative AI solutions will be utilised to improve business processes and further enhance customer partnerships.

Kerry has piloted a number of digital initiatives over the past 12 to 18 months and will upscale their deployment, as well as commencing a range of further digital excellence enablement initiatives over the next 2 years.

The pilot initiatives have included the launch of services such as the KerryNow customer portal, which streamlines and enhances a range of activities, from order tracking and the management of product portfolios, through to value-added services, such as new product development powered by AI and Kerry’s proprietary data. 

Shane McGibney, Chief Business Transformation Officer at Kerry, 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, Executive Director at Enterprise Ireland, said: “This investment is further proof of Kerry Group’s commitment to innovation and commercial excellence. 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.”