Jeff is hoping to milk his protein idea and grow it

A UNION Hall student  is working to create high grade protein food products to help those with digestive problems.

Jeff O’Mahony is a biological sciences student at Cork Institute of Technology (CIT). His business is Prolete, a company focused on developing digestion-friendly whey protein products.

Jeff came up with the idea when he noticed the prevalence of maldigestion among his friends caused by consuming whey protein products over the years. He was researching two separate projects for college which were both related to milk products and their negative effects on the digestion system for certain groups of people.

Jeff researched the methods that are employed to mitigate the maldigestion that dairy products can cause. He then examined the possibility of combining these methods with whey protein products to produce a high-grade protein source with improved digestibility. Jeff will be a participant on the CIT Student Inc programme for the summer working on his business idea.

‘I hope to work on developing my business idea and the Prolete brand further along with building up my overall knowledge of business, marketing, and finance,’ he said.

Student Inc, Ireland’s longest-running student accelerator, got underway at the start of this month.

The programme which encourages students to be innovative and creative is now itself having to be creative given the current Covid-19 restrictions with the programme launch taking place online. A group of 30 student entrepreneurs from Cork Institute of Technology, University College Cork and Institute of Technology Tralee will be meeting online, along with the support teams in the three colleges.

Students receive €4,000 in funding, expert mentoring and training and in normal circumstances office space in their respective incubators.

After 75 online interviews from 90 applications, 30 students were chosen.