London’s first food and drink innovation centre launches

This week sees the launch of London’s first food and drink innovation centre open aimed at offering technical, business, and marketing support to London’s food and drink production companies.

On Thursday 15th October 2009, at Dephna House, the Park Royal Food Innovation Centre invites companies to apply to gain access to the services on offer.

The centres house a state-of-the-art development kitchen, meeting rooms and training suite. A range of industry consultants, suppliers and partners to deliver one-to-one advice, clinics, briefings, industry networking events and seminars will also be available.

To qualify, companies need:

• To be London based
• Not to exceed 250 employees
• Not to have revenues in excess of €50m
• To have been trading for more than one year

The centre's opening results from the findings of a detailed mapping study into London's vast food and drink production industry, and is part-funded by a grant of £200,000 from the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Crucially, the survey highlighted a need for support for these SME food and drink production companies, particularly with regard to production and resource efficiency, training, facility management and design; product development, labelling, certification to recognised standards, food safety management and marketing tools.

Heading this exciting new venture is newly appointed Food Innovation Centre Manager, Sally Fowler, who is a food industry professional with over 20 years' experience in the food manufacturing industry.

Sally specialises in technical management, auditing and training, and is experienced at meeting the needs of all the major multiples. She originally qualified in Hotel Catering and Institutional Management at Ealing College (TVU), and ran her own successful business as a Food Safety and Health & Safety Consultant for the last two years.

"This is a first for London's SME food and drink producers and I want them to know that we are here to help. This brand new facility plus access to practical advice from industry experts will be invaluable and can help to make a real difference to their competitive edge," Fowler explains.

Words: Clare Riley

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