Scottish food businesses receive funding to make their recipes healthier
27 October 2021
Food and Drink Federation (FDF) Scotland has provided funding to 12 food businesses from across Scotland to help them make their products healthier. The businesses include well-known Scottish brands such as Bells, Shore Seaweed, We Hae Meat, Peacock Salt and J.G. Ross; and cover a variety of sectors from butchery, bakery and smoked fish through to ice cream, crisps and chocolate. This was made possible due to £30,000 of funding received from the Scotland Food & Drink Partnership Recovery Plan - supported by the Scottish Government.
Topics
Recipe reformulation is an important way that food and drink businesses can meet the growing consumer demand for healthier options and help Scotland’s people to improve their dietary health. This can mean increasing fibre, fruit and vegetables within foods. Alternatively, labelling can be used to recommend cooking techniques, portion size and serving suggestions. Or fat, salt or sugars, overall calories or portion sizes can be reduced.
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. The fund is helping businesses with costs including nutritional testing and technical support; trialing recipe and process changes; testing the functionality of ingredient alternatives; and improving production capacity and operational efficiency.
Joanne Burns, Reformulation for Health Manager, FDF Scotland, said:
“At the end of last year we launched the first Reformul8 Challenge Fund – it was oversubscribed and I was keen to offer additional funding to support even more businesses to make their products healthier.
“We were delighted to receive funding from the Scotland Food & Drink Partnership Recovery Plan which allowed us to launch a second call for funding in August. Again, this was oversubscribed - we had 25 applications and it was so difficult to pick which projects to fund.
“I am excited to be working with the successful 12 businesses on a wide range of projects. This includes reducing salt in pie products, increasing fibre in breads, lowering fat content of meat products, lowering sugar and calories in chocolate, lowering sugar and calories in ice-cream and lowering sodium content in salt products.
“These projects will help make everyday food healthier and in turn improve dietary health in communities across Scotland.”
If food and drink businesses are interested in finding out more about how FDF Scotland can support you with recipe reformulation please email reformulation@fdfscotland.org.uk.
More information
For more information please contact Kirsty Ritchie at kirsty.ritchie@fdfscotland.org.uk /0131 222 8040.
Note to Editors:
- In August 2021 FDF Scotland’s Reformulation for Health Programme launched the second round of the Reformul8 Challenge Fund to support Scottish food producers with the associated costs of reformulation. To support this work £30,000 of funding was provided by the Scotland Food & Drink Partnership Recovery Plan, supported by the Scottish Government.
- FDF Scotland’s Reformulation for Health programme, funded by the Scottish Government, is helping small and medium sized food companies to make their products healthier.
- FDF Scotland is the is the membership body for Scotland’s food and drink manufacturers, we represent and support our members on the issues that are important to them.