Marks and Spencer Group P.L.C.

Single-use plastic packaging is now firmly on the public's mind. Whilst government and industry have started to look for solutions, most innovation to date has focused on lightweighting, creating alternative single-use materials to SUPP or improving collection and recycling systems. While these are valuable improvements, Unpackaged believes the focus shou...

This project will develop a black-soldier-fly breeding programme that will supply continuously improving high-performance genetics to insect-as-feed producers in different environments. Livestock and aquaculture protein demand is increasing due to human population growth, yet current production depends on volatile and unsustainable soy and fishmeal import...

Today’s shoppers are faced with a vast number of products which can lead to an overwhelming shopping experience. They also buy across several retailers and have multiple purchase paths. Retailers attempt to help by providing personalised recommendations from their product catalogue, however this is currently restricted to online and is limited by data set...

New crop varieties that can tolerate abiotic/biotic stresses are essential for maintaining crop productivity in current and future growing environments. Breeding stress-tolerant crop varieties, however, is limited by the precision and throughput of plant phenotyping. This project will develop and apply a novel tractor-mounted platform for precise and high...

The overall aim of this industry led project is to increase the intake of soluble dietary fibre by the general population, providing Nutrition for Life to consumers of white bread, many of which are children. Today, almost 55% of all bread consumed in the UK is white bread with low fibre content, and partly responsible for the low fibre intake by the majo...

Currently there is great scope for increasing soft fruit production in the UK to meet demand from consumers and processors. Soft fruit is a success story for the UK being a valuable and sustainable horticulture industry with the associated broader health benefits derived from consumption. Currently however no high quality varieties with resistance to pest...

This project centres on exploring the potential to extract key new information from the spectral analysis gained through the mid Infra Red testing of individual cow milk samples. The scope exists to use the spectral data gained from such testing to estimate the quantity of a range of fatty acids in milk. Such information is valuable in terms of assessing ...

PROJECT TITLE: Protein content vs yield in legumes:releasing the constraint Summary: The demand for vegetable protein in the UK feed industry, coupled to supply constraints, creates a market opportunity for sustainable farming in the UK. To take advantage of this opportunity farmers need a high yielding, protein rich product. Legume seeds (pulses) have hi...

Production of protein in the EU, supplies only 30 percent of the protein needed for animal feed, which has been increasing over the past decade. To meet this demand, large volumes of proteins and protein-rich feed stuff have to be imported into the EU. Up to 30 million tonnes (Mt) of Soya Bean Meal (SBM) equivalent are imported into the EU annually, and t...

This project aims to understand and utilise plant physical mechanisms for resistance to pest and diseases in soft fruit/bush crops, to overcome changes in EU Directive 91/414/EEC and WFD and satisfy consumer demand for residue free, high quality fruit grown in the UK. Fresh fruit accounts for a market of £4 billion in the UK, and soft fruit/berries accoun...

This project aims to develop an integrated control strategy for the cabbage root fly (CRF) on radish. G's Fresh supplies ca. 65% of all the radish to the UK market and is forced to rely on routine application of chlorpyrifos, an organophosphorus insecticide, to control CRF. This pesticide has a number of undesirable characteristics, is rarely 100% effecti...

The project aims to convert waste product from seafood processing into valuable materials for novel industrial applications. The Consortium researches on the development of worldwide-sourced and UK-manufactured high performance functional materials for use in the food, agricultural and drilling sectors by processing chitosan, a biopolymer from crustacean ...