Deadline: 5-Jul-23
UK registered SMEs can apply for a share of up to £3 million to develop novel production systems that create resource efficient, low-emission foods, particularly proteins.
The aim of this competition is to support UK registered micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to develop novel food production systems. These will be to create new sources of resource efficient, low-emission foods, particularly proteins, while delivering healthy and sustainable diets.
Your proposal must:
- demonstrate your ambition to finalise a late-stage innovation
- show your potential to grow and scale your business through successful negotiation of investment from a lead investor associated with the competition
- provide a coherent project plan which integrates into your business strategy
They encourage projects that:
- develop the UK alternative protein industry sector to meet domestic consumer demands for alternative proteins and export opportunities for the technologies, products and services developed
- establish world leading Total Controlled Environment Agriculture (TCEA) capacity or semi-controlled environment production systems such as glasshouses or polytunnels, reducing horticulture imports and developing technology exports
- establish sustainable, resilient and healthy local food supply chains, which can decarbonise other sectors through circular economy approaches and co-location of food production adjacent to other industries
- realise unmet consumer demand for healthier, more sustainable alternative food products through the creation of new UK products
- establish new alternative protein sources that address the UK’s reliance on imports and deliver against government net-zero and environment targets, this can include work on functional groups such as lipids for food product formulation
Your proposal must describe how your project:
- will support the development of novel production systems that create new sources of resource efficient, low-emission foods, particularly proteins, while delivering healthy and sustainable diets
- outputs will progress emerging novel food production systems closer towards commercial viability and be able to supply mainstream consumer markets
Specific Themes
- Your project must have the potential to significantly shift the current state of the art in one or more of the following seven priority areas:
- plant based products or production systems
- acellular food production, for example, algal, bacterial or fungal fermentation systems
- cellular food production, for example, cell culture systems for meat production
- novel aquaculture systems, for example, fin-fish and shell-fish
- new food production systems, for example, insect farming, seaweed cultivation and other alternatives to traditional animal production systems
- Total Controlled Environment Agriculture (TCEA) systems
- improvements to semi-controlled environment production systems such as glasshouses or polytunnels
Funding Information
- Your project’s total costs must be between £750,000 and £3 million.
- Your project must:
- have total costs between £750,000 and £3 million
- start by 1 March 2024
- last 18 months
- carry out all of its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
- You must only include eligible project costs in your application.
Eligibility Criteria
- Lead organisation
- To lead a project your organisation must:
- be a UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)
- be prepared to negotiate heads of terms for an aligned private investment
- To lead a project your organisation must:
- Subcontractors
- Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.
- Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.
- You can use subcontractors from overseas but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use suppliers from the UK.
- You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. They will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.
- All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs.
Ineligible
- They are not funding projects that:
- are equine specific
- involve wild caught fisheries or traditional inshore aquaculture systems
- focus on non-food or non-feed applications and markets
- focus on incrementally improving traditional UK animal production systems
- are not carried out by single SMEs
- are collaborative research and development (R&D) projects
- are not part of a company’s growth plan
- are unable to prove there is potential for return on investment and growth
- They cannot fund projects that are:
- dependent on export performance, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country
- dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product
For more information, visit Innovate UK.