Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), Kansas City, Kan., announced the companies participating in the 2019 DFA Accelerator program. These seven companies will engage in a 90-day immersive program and work directly with leaders from DFA, CoBank, Greenwood Village, Colo.; Sprint, Overland Park, Kan.; and other industry experts and mentors to create strategic, long-term partnerships.

“It has been rewarding to help mentor these entrepreneurs, and we’re thrilled to get started with another class for this year’s DFA Accelerator. Plus, we’ve found that we learn along the way too,” says Monica Massey, executive vice president and chief of staff. “By working and collaborating with ag tech and dairy food startup companies, we’re helping develop solutions that will not only provide value for our farm families and their operations, but will also help drive consumer demand for dairy.”

With the DFA Accelerator, the ag tech and dairy food product companies selected will receive mentorship, connections and resources to help accelerate their growth. Features include:

• Targeted, strategic meetings with the corporate teams to discuss business development, pilots and potential sponsorships.
• Mentoring from DFA senior staff and their networks, as well as from the investor, business development and entrepreneurial communities.
• Business building sessions around product, brand, marketing and entrepreneurship.
• State-of-the-art workspace facilities provided at Sprint Accelerator in Kansas City’s Crossroads Arts District.

Some of the 2019 DFA Accelerator class entails:

Ag tech

• Cattle Care, San Francisco, uses video cameras to detect, recognize and track every cow as well as business processes and makes decisions for the farmer about the treatment of a particular cow or a whole barn.

• Labby is a Boston, Mass.-based artificial intelligence-powered smartphone platform for food and agro analytics.

Dairy food

• Brooklyn Buttery, Brooklyn, N.Y., reimagines butter as a fun, convenient product for home cooks wanting to use sustainably sourced ingredients.
• Numa, Bridgewater, N.J., makes all-natural sweet, chewy milk treats with just six natural ingredients and 4 grams of protein.
• RifRaf, Brooklyn, N.Y., offers creamy ricotta cups that are one part cheese.