Research & Innovation

Irish genetics company IdentiGEN has welcomed a €1.8 million research and development award to further strengthen its position as a world leader in DNA technologies within the food industry. IdentiGEN, which is based in Dublin and provides DNA traceability solutions for the meat and seafood sectors, will use the investment to advance food quality and integrity, working together with University College Dublin (UCD).

IdentiGEN has operations in Ireland, UK, USA and Europe and works with major international retailers, distributors and processors. It has been awarded €1.8 million from the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund, announced by the Irish Government’s Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation.

IdentiGEN’s Managing Director and Founder Ciarán Meghen says the funding will be used to further develop genomic technologies to improve confidence in the origin, quality and safety of food. “Food labelling is a major cost to industry and has been shown to be vulnerable to abuse and fraud. IdentiGEN has identified an approach to transform and industrialise the use of DNA profiling in food labelling. This will involve working with the UCD Animal Genomics Laboratory where we expect to transform the cost base of DNA analysis, making the technology widely applicable.”

He adds: “New technologies present us with the opportunity to disrupt the food labelling status quo. This investment will support IdentiGEN to remain at the cutting edge of genomics and we look forward to the global opportunities which it will present.”