Food & Health Alliance

With that in mind, Scottish Enterprise set up an ambitious £4.4 million project this spring, the Food and Health Innovation Service, with the aim of exploiting this burgeoning market which is already reckoned to be worth £20 billion in the UK and £300 billion globally.

The five-year project, which is funded by Scottish Enterprise, brings together a number of organisations, including the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health and the SAOS, under the direction of research and development body Campden BRI. The idea is to encourage innovation, whether that is through reformulating existing products, exploiting naturally healthy products or developing new products.

“Our job is to engage with the companies to help them articulate their vision of product innovation and what they would like to do,” explains Philip Richardson, project director for the Food and Health Innovation Service and Head of the Department of Food Manufacturing Technologies at Campden BRI.

In essence the project seeks to match Scotland’s leading food and drink companies with the cutting edge research know-how that exists within the country. The process involves one of the FHIS facilitators visiting each company to find out exactly what their needs are. This is followed by a detailed scoping report outlining how they can deliver product innovations.

One of the potential answers is reformulation to reduce the fat, salt or sugar contents of products and so make them healthier. But, says Philip, this is only one part of the approach and has so far accounted for less than 10% of all activity.

Company confidentiality prevents him giving specific examples of potential innovations. But it could, for instance, involve extending the shelf life of some products.

Produce like soft fruit would normally be expected to have a shelf life of 5-10 days. “If you’re in a position with new techniques to extend that shelf life to, say, a couple of months there would obviously be more opportunities to sell and therefore access to more markets.”

Equally, someone using traditional frying materials might be persuaded to consider healthier alternatives. And a manufacturer looking to move into the allergen market might want to know about the latest techniques for creating products that could be, say, free from gluten

The objective at the end of the project’s five years is to have at least 400 Scottish food and drink companies “meaningfully engaged” with the project. So far the service has contacted 160 companies of which around 60 have received visits and 49 have received detailed scoping reports and action plans. In addition, the FHIS’s newsletter is now sent to over 1200 contacts in the field.

Philip stresses that the final measure of success will be the extent to which the service has provided companies with innovative and potentially lucrative solutions “rather than being focused on the number of new products on the shelf”.

“The first thing I hope the project is doing is helping Scottish industry recognise the powerhouse that exists in Scottish academia,” he says. “I hope it will also help Scottish academics recognise that some of the companies would really like some of the knowledge they have already amassed.

“One of the big targets and measures of success would be getting improved dialogue and link-up between Scottish food and drink companies and Scottish academic providers.”

Contact details:

Philip Richardson

Food & Health Innovation Service, c/o Scottish Enterprise, 27 Albyn Place, Aberdeen, AB10 1DB

Telephone: 0845 607 8787.

Email philip.richardson@foodhealthinnovation.com

More information:

 www.foodhealthinnovation.com

http://www.scotlandfoodanddrink.org/media/10025/industry%20strategy%20resfresh.pdf