Lack of funding for UK food businesses

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed I missed a week last week, I think for the first time since I started! Unfortunately I was struck down with the dreaded swine flu caught on the plane on the way back from Shanghai. But, of course, the Chinese have not got swine flu in their nation, they say. Yeah right! If you haven’t had the illness yet I do recommend you get vaccinated particularly with the busy Christmas season coming up. Being knocked out of your business at this time of year is not funny. It takes quite a lot for me to have time off work sick – in fact I don’t think I have for five years, but this wretched flu did the job.

Anyway enough of that, I am back now. I have had the opportunity twice within the last two weeks to see just how low helping food businesses is on the government priority list. We all know ‘Food from Britain’ had its problems and wasted quite a lot of government money, but the UK desperately needs some kind of cohesive plan to encourage and help the UK’s food businesses export their products to Europe and beyond. There has never been a better time to export Britain’s food due to the low £ and the increased profile of British food throughout the world, but we simply are not able to make enough of this opportunity. At a food show I attended in Shanghai, there were big stands from Australia, New Zealand, France, Italy and many other places. The British stand totaled three companies – an embarrassing effort. I know the government has other issues on its plate at present, but one of the best ways of increasing the strength of our economy is through the balance of payments - please impress this upon your MP and lobby for funding for the food businesses of the UK.

The second type of lack of funding I have seen at first hand is in my new role as a director of the South-East Food Group Partnership. This is the umbrella organisation for the Southern counties regional food groups such as Hampshire Fare, Taste of Sussex etc… The funding is cut for 2010/11 financial year – most of these county organisations will survive this (except one), but for the following year there is a real danger that some more of these groups will disappear. For a new gourmet food producer just starting up, these organisations are a tremendous help and can help enormously in raising the profile of small food businesses. They also enable small producers to exhibit at trade shows without it costing a fortune. Clearly it will be detrimental to the food culture of the UK if the funding to these organisations is cut further.

Well, that is all for this week. Sorry to be a little depressing this week. Sorry about that, but do enjoy the next two and a half weeks. It looks like a very busy Christmas trading period for us all.