In collaboration with industry leaders, including Nestlé, Dale Farm, Hartpury Digital Innovation Farm and Peacock Technology, who defined the challenges that the participants will solve, this programme is delivered by Digital Catapult as part of the Innovate UK BridgeAI Programme and builds on its success applying AI-driven solutions to support the country’s high-growth sectors.

The High Growth AI Accelerator, part of the BridgeAI programme, has facilitated £2.4 million in private and public funding within one year of participation, demonstrating the programme’s convening power and impact on scaling deep tech startups. The UK’s agrifood supply chain is highly complex, and this new intervention will support the drive for greater digital supply chain resilience and adoption of deep tech applications, including biomass condition management, dairy forecasting and plant disease detection. 

With ongoing support from the industry leaders, participants will consider how to solve specific challenges in the agrifood sector, including ways to forecast milk volumes from cattle and optimise feed as Rubik trials its Data Mule platform during the 14-week programme. Barefoot Lightning will connect data from farmers with its feed platform to boost production quality and cut carbon emissions. FISCROP will develop a modelling tool to improve disease management and feed efficiency, while Crop Intellect is advancing a Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) system for scaling its solution that can scale N₂O removal projects.  

Further applications that will be trialled to help ensure the sector is future-ready include Carbon Rewild testing an AI bird classifier to provide deeper insights into species’ behaviour, and Wilder Sensing will enhance its solution to validate habitat classifications and improve environmental impact assessments. Data Dynamics will refine its geospatial monitoring platform to test and validate capabilities on cocoa farming data in West Africa. Mozaic Earth will look to scale its smartphone-enabled biodiversity and biomass monitoring solution for Scope 3 emissions reporting, and FarmSmarter is building a tool to detect Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus in West Africa early, empowering farmers with information about crop disease diagnoses in low-connectivity regions.  

By convening capabilities with the industry leaders, offering innovation and technological consultancy, and investment readiness support to participants, Digital Catapult continues to enable deep tech startups to scale successfully and ensure that the UK’s agrifood sector can build greater resilience to future challenges. With the sector contributing £14.5 billion to the economy, AI-driven solutions offer a clear pathway for sustained growth, enabling UK agrifood to modernise practices, optimise resource use and strengthen resilience while also improving productivity.  

Jessica Rushworth, Chief Partnerships Officer at Digital Catapult, said: “What underpins the importance of this intervention is the need to ensure that agrifood businesses will be future-ready and as adaptable as possible to fluctuating yields and unprecedented environmental challenges like we’ve seen this year. Critical to the continued success of this programme is effective collaboration and partnership, and we’re excited to partner with industry leaders like Nestle and Dale Farm to jointly demonstrate how AI can help to solve some of the sector’s most significant challenges and ensure continued growth in the years to come.”  

Sara El-Hanfy, Director of AI & Digital at Innovate UK, said: “The agrifood sector faces some of the most significant challenges of our time; from supply chain resilience to climate pressures. By supporting AI-first startups through the Innovate UK BridgeAI programme and specialist accelerators, we are giving them the tools, partnerships and confidence to transform bold ideas into scalable solutions. This programme demonstrates how innovation, when coupled with industry expertise, can unlock new growth, sustainability and global leadership for the UK’s agrifood industry.” 

Ryan McNeill, R&D Sustainability Lead at Nestlé Confectionery, said, “AI is revolutionising the food sector by transforming vast data streams into actionable insights—tracking regenerative farming, predicting disease outbreaks, and integrating digital tools into cohesive systems. As climate and food security pressures mount, AI stands as the backbone of resilient, data-driven agricultural transformation. The Innovate UK BridgeAI programme is a fantastic way to identify, support and accelerate novel solutions in this space. We are excited to see the results over the next 12 weeks!” 

Dr Lucy Garrett and Prof Matt Bell at Hartpury University and College said: “Large-scale biodiversity monitoring that captures spatial and temporal changes across land use is challenging but is needed not only to address biodiversity decline but also to support new schemes such as Biodiversity Net Gain. Tracking the sounds of wildlife using bioacoustic technology has proved very promising. The support from the Digital Catapult Accelerator Programme and Innovate UK BridgeAI has united experts in bioacoustic monitoring with those in the field to deliver solutions.” 

Robert Boyce, Sustainability Director at Peacock Technology, commented: “We are applying machine vision and AI to dairy farming through automation that enables better animal productivity and welfare, and the BridgeAI initiative has been opening up great new opportunities for collaboration with early-stage companies that align with our ambitions. By working collaboratively, we are seeking to broaden the scope and reach of what is possible and be able to help more farmers use automation and AI to help them achieve significant improvements in efficiency, sustainability, and resilience.” 

Andrew Murray, Head of Data & Analytics at Dale Farm, said: “This BridgeAI partnership marks a pivotal step forward in our commitment to innovation and operational excellence. By harnessing the power of AI and aligning it with our broader Digital Transformation strategy, we’re laying the foundation for smarter, more agile ways of working across Dale Farm.” 

For more startup news, check out the other articles on the website, and subscribe to the magazine for free. Listen to The Cereal Entrepreneur podcast for more interviews with entrepreneurs and big-hitters in the startup ecosystem.