£250,000 awarded to fund sustainable solutions to tackle nutrient challenges in Northern Ireland’s poultry egg layer sector
Date published:
Five companies have been awarded a total of £250,000 to develop practical, economical and environmentally friendly solutions for poultry layer manure.
A key aim of this DAERA led project is to reduce surplus phosphorus and ensure efficient, sustainable nutrient management while unlocking new economic opportunities within Northern Ireland agriculture.
The five companies have each been awarded up to £50,000 to develop this work and are expected to complete their projects by March 2026. The companies are:
- The Centre for Competitiveness (NI) Ltd - RECLAIM - Recovery and Enhancement of Chicken Litter for Agricultural and Industrial Materials
- DUNDY Ltd - In Vessel Aerobic Digestion (IVAD) of Layer Poultry Manure
- Forged Innovation Ltd - NIPEX - Nutrient Immobilisation and Preservation for Export
- STREAM Bioenergy UK Ltd - Layer Manure as a Biogas Feedstock
- Valoriworld B.V. - Decentralized Pasteurization & Processing Units (DPPU) for Layer Manure Valorization with Export Platform.
Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Andrew Muir said: “I warmly welcome the selection of five innovative companies to take forward Phase 1 of the Sustainable Utilisation of Layer Manure (SULM) SBRI. This marks an important step in tackling nutrient challenges within the poultry sector and complements our ongoing work under the Sustainable Utilisation of Livestock Slurry (SULS) programme and other SBRIs related to Lough Neagh. Together, these programmes demonstrate our commitment to supporting practical, scalable solutions that protect our environment, enhance water quality, and support our green economy in Northern Ireland.”
Funding is being provided by DAERA through a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) managed by The Strategic Investment Board (SIB) and The College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE). SBRI provides the public sector with innovative solutions to problems that will drive improvement and allows suppliers to develop products and services working collaboratively with the public sector, enabling them to develop new skills, expertise, and markets.
The SBRI funding will be used by the companies to create practical and economically viable models where layer manure can be processed with minimal nitrogen and methane losses, to produce feedstock which can be used to produce energy and/or the nutrients will be suitably processed to provide a replacement for artificial fertiliser for use in NI or suitable for export.
Notes to editors:
- For further information about the Small Business Research Initiative visit https://matrixni.org/sbri/.
- The five projects commenced in September 2025 and are due to be completed by March 2026. During this time, these projects will develop practical and economically viable solutions where layer manure can be processed with minimal nitrogen and methane losses in a bio secure manner for use in energy production or further processed into other products for export. Nutrients remaining post processing may provide a replacement for artificial fertiliser for use in NI or for export.
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