"New York is well known for producing high-quality milk, a premium ingredient for many value-added products. Providing food innovators with critical entrepreneurial training will advance the state's effort to introduce more value-added dairy products and increase the utilization and sales of milk and dairy ingredients produced in New York," said Larry Bailey, chair of the New York State Dairy Promotion Advisory Board.

Up to 12 teams will be selected into each Dairy Runway cohort to participate in a virtual course that combines self-directed online learning activities with Zoom-based class meetings and one-on-one instructor check-ins. Throughout the program, participants will have access to a select group of CREA's Entrepreneurs in Residence to provide support in coursework and product development.

"Too often entrepreneurs struggle to successfully identify their product consumer group, which can lead to product failure," said Jenn Smith, CREA's Director of Food and Ag Startup Programs. "We want to provide dairy entrepreneurs a head start by teaching them the fundamentals of consumer discovery and delivering their product to that target group. CREA is well known for producing exceptional and easily accessible entrepreneurship curricula, and we're thrilled to extend this resource to New York's dairy community."

Engaged teams will also be offered fully funded access to Cornell's Prototyping Kitchen or another approved incubation kitchen in New York state and will receive support from Cornell Food Science technical experts, in order to bring their innovative ideas to the prototype stage after coursework concludes.

The application period for the Dairy Runway program closes June 22, 2023. Dairy innovators with a value-added dairy product who are located in the United States and committed to using New York-produced dairy ingredients in their product are eligible to apply.

Photo courtesy of Cornell University.