Speaking at the Ceremony, Cogeca President Paolo Bruni said “We received a good number of applications for this highly prestigious Award this year which aims to promote innovation and show how creative and innovative European agricultural cooperatives are. It also aims to encourage other cooperatives to improve their competitiveness and positioning in the food chain and to create more innovative products. Innovation allows efficiency gains in productivity, with an optimal use of resources. This is crucial in view of growing food demand, limited resources and an increasingly competitive marketplace. Agri-cooperatives need to produce more and better products, in a sustainable manner. The three Awards presented here today, in the International Year of Cooperatives, show how innovative agri-cooperatives can be and how they can respond to the evolving needs of consumers and the food chain”.
The first Award for innovation in food processing was presented by MEP Christel Schaldemose (S&D, DK) to the Danish dairy cooperative Naturmaelk for its new healthy, refreshing organic protein drink for athletes, joggers and elderly people during rehabilitation. The product is based on whey and offers a healthy alternative to other energy drinks in a market where demand is large and steadily increasing. Naturmaelk is expecting high success from this new product .
The second Award for innovative achievements in sustainability and resource efficiency was presented by MEP Michel Dantin (EPP, FR) to the French cooperative Terrena for its satellite based IT system “Ecologically Intensive Agriculture” which has tailor made software systems to support precision farming and better coordination in decision-making through a wider choice base. This enables a more efficient use of resources, cost savings and better farm profitability.
The third Award for innovative achievements in cooperative entrepreneurship/member service was presented by MEP Britta Reimers (ALDE, DE) to the German cooperative ZG Raiffeisen for an incentive scheme to reward loyalty for transactions, as well as for capital participation, combined with new services and training of young members.
