Animal Agri-Tech start-up Senesino has won the opportunity to work with the UK’s leading retailer, Tesco, and its supply chain partners, after the Tesco Agri T-Jam was run for a third year in partnership with the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit.
The Scotland-based innovator has introduced Numnuts, a product that provides lambs with the best start in life, giving welfare focused consumers, retailers, and sheep farmers an ethical and sustainable approach to castration and de-tailing. It is an easy-to-use product that provides targeted pain relief for ‘marking’ of lambs with the standard rubber ring.
The Numnuts concept originated from work led by Moredun’s Named Veterinary Surgeon, Manus Graham, who secured some of the early funding in this area. Moredun has continued to be involved in its development and evaluation. As a consequence of this early work, Moredun Research Institute possesses a shareholding in the company, with the Institute’s Director, Prof Julie Fitzpatrick, sitting on the Board.
After an in-depth review and judging process which selected ten finalists from more than 170 international entries, Tesco’s Head of Agriculture, Natalie Smith, revealed the winner in a live webinar showcase on October 19.
Along with extra publicity, winning the award gives Senesino the chance to work with Tesco’s supply chain and potentially adopt the Numnuts approach within it.
Commenting on the reasons for the winning choice, Tesco’s Head of Agriculture, Natalie Smith, said:
“We were very impressed by the standard of applications and presentations from the 2020 Agri T-Jam finalists, with a number of companies being highly commended by the judging panel. It was a difficult decision picking one winner, but Senesino (Numnuts) was chosen as the company that would greatly benefit from further support from Tesco and its Supplier Partners to trial and scale up a simple piece of technology that has the potential to improve the welfare of thousands of animals within our supply chain.”
Commenting on the win, Robin Smith, Founder of Senesino said:
“Wow, we can’t believe it… This is a lot more than ‘every little helps’, it is a substantial commitment by a major UK retailer in helping to improve UK farm animal welfare! We are delighted that the team at Tesco are excited as we are about helping to repatriate our technology back into the UK (where it was invented), then assisting the tens of millions of lambs with their Numnuts!”
Senesino (Numnuts) will now benefit from introductions to Tesco’s supply chain partners, as well as ongoing support from the Tesco Agriculture team.
Involved in the judging process were a number of Tesco directors, its Agriculture team and the supplier R&D committee.
This piece was adapted from the original press release written by the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit.
Related links:
- Agri T-Jam – Numnut presentation (YouTube; external page)
- Original press release: Senesino’s ‘Numnuts’ Wins Tesco Agri T-Jam and World Agri-Tech Pitch Day 2020 (external page)
- About Numnuts (external page)