Food and Drink Federation (FDF) Scotland has unveiled £50,000 of funding to help Scottish producers to make their food healthier.
Food and drink businesses have a real desire to offer a wider range of healthier products – but the associated costs can be challenging. This is why FDF Scotland developed the Reformul8 Challenge Fund. This fourth round of support was made possible due to funding received from Scotland Food & Drink.
The fund is open to small and medium sized food and drink businesses across Scotland – with up to £5,000 available for each successful business.
The fund will be used for a wide range of activities. This includes accessing nutritional testing and technical support, working with ingredient suppliers to source and trial new innovative solutions that can improve the health of products and improving production capacity.
The winners will be announced at a free showcase event – Celebrating Reformulation and Innovation for Health – hosted by FDF Scotland and Interface at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh on 26 February 2024.
To date 46 businesses have been supported in their reformulation journey through three previous rounds of funding. Those winners include some of Scotland’s most-loved brands – Bells Food Group, Simon Howie, We Hae Meat, Border Biscuits, Dean’s of Huntly, Arran Dairies, Strathmore Foods, JG Ross and Cobbs Bakery.
This has led to many success stories. Bells Food Group reduced the salt in their pie shells by 50% – taking almost nine tonnes of salt out of the Scottish diet – the equivalent to nine family sized cars. While Tower Bakery almost doubled the fibre content in some of their bread roll ranges to meet the Food and Drink in Schools (Scotland) Regulations.
Food and drink businesses have until 16 February 2024 to apply for the fund.
Joanne Burns, Reformulation for Health Manager, FDF Scotland, said: “I am delighted to be able to support more Scottish food and drink manufacturers with the fourth round of the Reformul8 Challenge Fund.
“Creating a wider range of healthier products can help food businesses to meet growing consumer demand for healthier options and to achieve public health targets.
“The fund is a great way to help businesses kick start their reformulation journey. Along with bespoke help and guidance from the Reformulation for Health team we can help you get those products to shelf – improving the health of Scotland’s people one product at a time!”