Mullingar start-up already attracts interest from US

A new start-up company based in Mullingar that aims to transform the way dairy companies collect milk from farms has already seen interest in its product from the USA.

OptaHaul, based at the old tobacco factory at the National Science Park, is designing software that will enable creameries to work out the most efficient route between farms to minimise drive time and load weight.

“We plan to hire between 10 and 12 within our first three years, and by 2024 we plan to get up to 12 Irish-based employees, predominantly in programming, but some in sales and in marketing,” says Gary Gallagher, who is heading up the enterprise.

Gary, who is from Clondra in Longford, says that at a time when there is pressure on the agricultural sector to cut its levels of carbon emissions, a significant contributor to the problem is the transportation of milk from farm to plant.

“The planning and management of raw milk collection from farms is a critical and costly procedure, representing over 30pc of the total processing costs within the dairy industry,” he says.

“Milk collection transport poses a unique challenge in terms of logistics. Not only is milk a perishable good requiring time-sensitive transport planning, but once it is collected from farms, it may be delivered to any one of a number of possible destinations, including factories, depending on prevailing business requirements.”

Farmers, hauliers and factory personnel all play a role in these complex operations, which depend on a wide range of constantly changing parameters –　including factory capacities, weather conditions, load limitations, bulk storage capacity and variations in milk supply, Gary explains.

“All of these factors demand careful planning and monitoring, with a constant eye on the detailed cost structure of milk collection and overall profitability,” he said, going on to explain that up to now the dairy industry has relied on personal knowledge, using multiple Excel spreadsheets and frequent interventions like texts and telephone contact between dairy management and haulier personnel.

The results were often hit and miss, as unpredictable factors and changing circumstances affected efficiency.

“OptaHaul has now changed all that, using advanced mathematical algorithms that automatically calculate optimal route plans, while at the same time controlling transport costs, maximising tanker utilisation and reducing carbon emissions,” said Gary, explaining that the highly flexible OptaHaul system records and tracks all relevant information about milk suppliers, lorries, tankers and processing factories in a simple interface.

This, he says, allows access to data at any time and from any location.

Designed with the dairy industry, the software adopts a different approach to that of traditional logistic software, which was designed to plan deliveries to pre-determined destinations according to the capacity of the fleet.

Gary said: “Our technology allow users to model changes to plans resulting from machine downtime, supplier issues, variations in milk supply and changes to factory requirements.

“The system uses embedded interactive mapping to provide a visual representation of optimised and actual routes so that dairy processors can easily identify cost saving opportunities or under-performing routes.

“Users can even manually add unsuitable roads based on local knowledge and include farm access restrictions in plans to deliver the best route – a feature hotly requested by Irish dairy processors due to access challenges some rural farms pose for large milk lorries.

“Carbon emissions are constantly monitored and managed to ensure a reduction in the carbon footprint by each collection fleet – a feature becoming increasingly important not only in the context of the new Climate Bill but also for dairy companies to promote their green credentials to their customers – the consumers of dairy products.”

Gary said that OptaHaul was originally developed with the largest dairy processor in Hungary, and it was trialled here last year with one of the biggest dairy firms operating here, and to date there has been significant interest from milk processors in Ireland, Continental Europe and the United States.

“OptaHaul’s specialised technology may soon be adopted by dairy companies worldwide looking to achieve carbon efficient, cost-effective milk transport,” he said.

Investment to date in this new start-up has come from dairy industry veteran Aaron Forde, former CEO of Irish dairy processor Aurivo and former chairman of international agri-food company Ornua (owner of the Kerrygold brand), along with Zoosh Investment Partnership, a private fund of Irish angel investors led by Bert Farrell.

Gary’s background is the high-tech sector, having worked as a senior manager with tech multinationals Dell and Oracle and more recently Zoosh Digital –　an Irish-based digital product design and development company, specialising in scalable, secure cloud native solutions.