The University of East Anglia (UEA) has supported local company Snack Creations to gain a grant of almost £300,000 to facilitate an innovative project that could transform the company’s healthy snacks business through the introduction of cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. The funding has been awarded by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, through the agri-tech and food tech Launchpad scheme – which was set up to support outstanding innovation projects led by agritech and agrifood businesses in the east of England. Gordon Chetwood, Managing Director of Snack Creations, commented: “As a leading global innovator at the forefront of the healthy snacks market, we’re always looking at ways of improving. Through this project, we’ll work with world-leading experts from the University of East Anglia (UEA) over 18 months, with the grant divided between us and UEA. “The project is about introducing data-driven decision-making through the very latest Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies. This has the potential to be truly transformational, enabling us to develop new healthy snacks products even quicker and more efficiently, as well as reducing waste.” Professor Sheng Qi, Professor of Pharmaceutical Material Science and Technology from the University of East Anglia, supported the bid for funding and will be working on the 18-month project, which is due to go live later this year. Professor Sheng Qi commented: “It’s always rewarding to see our work having an impact beyond the world of academia and we are delighted that this funding bid was successful. As the number-1 ranked university in England for the quality of our research into food and agriculture, we work with a wide range of partners on a local, national and global scale.” Innovate UK will be launching the next – and likely final – funding stage of the Agri-Tech and Food Tech Launchpad on 7 May and the funding window will close on 19 June. Agri-tech and agri-food businesses in the east of England will be able to bid for up to £300,000 of grant funding for a collaborative R&D project – building consortia with researchers, academics, charities and larger corporates. To explore ways of accessing UEA’s world-leading expertise – including support for collaborative funding bids – contact [email protected].