£1.6 million awarded for sustainable food and drink innovation
Growing Kent & Medway has awarded a share of over £1.6m to 13 UK businesses to fund projects that will sustainably transform the horticultural and plant-based supply chain.
The projects selected provide solutions to some of the biggest sustainability challenges currently facing the F&B industry, from next gen tech to recycling wastewater to breeding new varieties of fruit for snacks.
The funders were particularly interested in projects that focused on creating circular economies and finding new uses for waste products. Nim’s Fruit, for example, was awarded £22,000+ to repurpose its fruit and vegetable powders.
“Sustainability is a core principle guiding our actions and we are proud to have achieved a zero-food waste status within our business,” said founder Nimisha Raja MBE.
“For some time, we've aspired to utilise our byproducts to create new products to help consumers reduce food waste at home, but unfortunately, limited financial resources have held us back.”
Other grants were awarded to Tensei Ltd to test different agri-waste materials as polymer fillers in order to reduce the amount of virgin or recycled plastic used in packaging; Canterbury Brewers & Distillers to develop a new system that will produce speciality mushrooms, using the waste grain, water, CO², and energy from their new whiskey production facility.
“We are investing in real-world business innovation and research projects that demonstrate how science-led, sustainable innovation can be deployed throughout the supply chain,” said Dr Nikki Harrison, programme director for Growing Kent & Medway.
“This not only benefits the environment by helping Kent businesses become more sustainable but also stimulates economic growth. Fresh thinking can help create new revenue streams and new markets from waste byproducts and processes.
“While these projects demonstrate the exciting innovation happening in Kent and Medway, we expect the knowledge that is gained to help transform our food systems throughout the sector.”
Recipients of the Growing Kent & Medway Collaborative Research and Development grants:
- Worldwide Fruit: Next generation apple breeding for resilient UK production
- AG&HT Miles: Development of sustainable recycled growing media
- Edward Vinson: Use of phenotyping and genomics to breed for plant architecture in strawberry
- Recoir: Use of microbiome amendments to improve propagation efficiency, cultivation sustainability, productivity and resilience in the Kent and Medway raspberry industry
- Rumwood Green Farm: A phenology-perceptive integrated biocontrol programme for large raspberry aphid control
Winners of the Business Sustainability Challenge grants:
- Tensei: Application of agri-residues (second harvest) as bio-fillers in injection moulded plastic blends for use in fresh produce packaging
- Totally Natural Solutions: Development of sustainable CO2 natural liquid hop extracts with high impact ester profiles and functional benefits to beverages
- A C Hulme and Sons: Managing energy usage in apple cold storage in Kent
- Stoneset Management Group: From whiskey to mushrooms
- Grow Up Group: Boosting water efficiencies of high care controlled environment horticulture in Kent using new innovative British technology
- Nim’s Fruit: Re-purposing fruit and vegetable powders
- The Squerryes Partnership: Development of onsite wine production and processing for Squerryes winery
- Evogro: A novel method of seed delivery for vertical farming.