Start-up companies in the food and drink sector could be in the running for up to £100,000 of support from Scottish EDGE via a new sector-specific funding award.
Supported by Scotland Food & Drink, the new award is part of the 22nd round of the Scottish EDGE competition which is open for submissions with a prize fund of more than £1 million. It follows the addition of the EDGE Circular Economy special prize in 2019 and the EDGE Net Zero award in 2022.
Valued at £15 billion and targeting £20bn by 2028, Scotland's food and drink sector is one of the nation's biggest industries with exports doubling in the last decade. The new prize of up to £100,000 will be comprised of 30% grant money and 70% loan.
READ MORE: Scottish EDGE hands out £1.6m in latest funding round
“As a founder of a Scottish food and drink business, I know first-hand the importance of funding to bring ideas to fruition," said Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne, chair of Scotland Food and Drink. "I’m proud that Scotland Food & Drink is partnering with Scottish EDGE to support and fund the next great idea our dynamic sector produces through this award.”
First launched in 2013, Scottish EDGE supports young innovative businesses with high growth potential. To date it has supported 569 businesses with a total of approximately £23m in grants and loans, helping to create more than 3,200 jobs and boosting the collective turnover of its winners by £627m.
“The introduction of the Scotland Food and Drink EDGE award is testament to a growing sector that is integral to Scotland’s economy and place on the world stage," Scottish EDGE chief executive Evelyn McDonald said.
READ MORE: New programme 'to make the Scottish economy sing’
“The generous support of Scotland Food & Drink will allow Scottish EDGE, through the Scotland Food and Drink EDGE Award, to raise the profile of the innovative businesses working to highlight the bounty of food and drink options being farmed, nurtured and manufactured right here in Scotland.”
Iain Baxter, chief executive at Scotland Food & Drink, added: “Our nation’s food and drink businesses are among the most entrepreneurial and innovative in the world, and it’s important that we can support them through initiatives like the Scottish EDGE awards.
“Scotland Food & Drink shares many of the same values as Scottish EDGE, with sustainable growth at the heart of our recently-published industry strategy. Collaboration is another key theme, and by partnering with Scottish EDGE, we are looking forward to supporting the winning food and drink businesses.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here