Attention Dairy Businesses, Innovators, and Food Enthusiasts
Now is your chance to bring your ideas and know-how to create new consumer-ready products and bring them to market!
New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, NY Dairy Promotion Order Advisory Board, and VentureFuel have teamed up to offer a startup competition called MilkLaunch. The competition encourages entrepreneurs to develop new dairy products for consumers with the ultimate goal of boosting dairy sales in New York State.
Currently, the dairy industry is the largest component of New York’s agriculture economy. We produce almost 15 billion pounds of milk from nearly 4,000 farms. Our state is the fourth largest producer of fluid milk and the lead producing state of cottage cheese and sour cream. Yogurt is a popular dairy commodity too, and we are the second largest producer of this dairy food.
The competition is for innovators in the early stages of product development; from a single great idea to existing new products. Products must have at least 50% fluid milk as ingredients, have sales less than $250,000, and the milk sourced must be from New York State producers for at least 12 months. Entries are open to all interested parties, including dairy farms, processors, academics, innovative thinkers, and all lovers of milk products.
The competition will award over $200,000, including 4, $15,000 finalists to perfect their ideas with lab time, consumer feedback, research, and consumer product mentorship. The grand prize will be awarded to the winner(s) of the competition to build the product for market and expand New York dairy sales.
Competition rules, information, and application documents are available at www.venturefuel.net/nymilklaunch and the deadline for application is September 15, 2020.
Learn more about the contributing agencies:
New York State Dairy Promotion Advisory Board
The Dairy Promotion Advisory Board consists of ten New York milk producers appointed by the Commissioner of the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets, who serve a three-year term. The first New York State Dairy Promotion Advisory Board was appointed in May 1972 at the request of dairy producers. The board advises the Commissioner on the disposition of approximately $15 million a year in funds collected from milk producers under the producer-approved DPO. It also makes recommendations on promotion and nutrition education programs and various dairy product and research projects. Learn more at: https://agriculture.ny.gov/dairy/dairy-promotion-order
About VentureFuel, Inc.
VentureFuel helps established companies around the world unlock growth and discover efficiencies by partnering with emerging startups and breakthrough technologies. Our innovation programs solve specific challenges with tangible results, discover first-to-market opportunities and help large organizations develop a repeatable innovation mindset. We are 100% independent, sourcing from our global network of the best investors, scouts, founders and academics. Learn more at www.venturefuel.net, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter.