The Livestock Farming Cooperative of Valle de los Pedroches (Cooperativa Ganadera del Valle de los Pedroches: COVAP) and the Andalusia Technology Corporation (Corporación Tecnológica de Andalucía: CTA) have held a working day on innovation in the cooperative agrofood chain to pinpoint opportunities of technological cooperation with a selection of trailblazing firms. Present at this meeting were representatives of CTA’s most innovative member firms, including Miguel Hormigo, Industry Manager of GMV’s Secure e-Solutions sector.

COVAP president, Ricardo Delgado, stated that "the conference, an original CTA brainchild, has been really useful, and mutually beneficial collaborations and synergies are bound to emerge from the bilateral meetings with the innovating firms that visited us and everything else discussed by the whole group." For his part the CTA President, Adelaida de la Calle, declared that “the aim of this meeting is to detect potential technology partners with which COVAP might carry out R&D projects to solve the main technological challenges of digital transformation”.

COVAP’s innovation manager, José Antonio Rísquez, talked about the innovation and technology lines already being carried out by the firm, while the cooperative’s Digital Transformation and Operations Manager, Vidal Madrid, showcased some of the projects already underway and the challenges being dealt with. After visiting COVAP’s site, some of the trailblazing firm then held bilateral meetings with cooperative representatives to analyze in greater detail the R&D collaboration opportunities.

Over €4 million in R&D projects with CTA

COVAP has now carried out 8 CTA-brokered R&D projects worth over 4 million euros in all, dealing with such aspects as improving the meat quality of the Iberian pig, traceability based on radiofrequencies, automation of fodder quality control, improvement of food security and optimization of animal feed.

COVAP runs its own innovation department with a solid, multidisciplinary structure and specialists in the areas of primary production, dairy food and meat, tapping into research as an effective innovation tool both of products and processes within cooperative industries. Prime among the innovation-strategy objectives are application of new handling methods that imply a direct improvement in animal welfare and continuous improvement of products, formulae and new product lines to meet needs expressed by clients, phasing in new client references to round out the traditional line of business and keep up with the new market trends.

Source: CTA