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For ten years, the Food Innovation Centre (FIC) has been a place food and drink businesses come to solve real technical and scientific challenges. We're behind some of East Midland's most exciting food stories and start-up journeys. From new product development (NPD) and process optimisation to early-stage feasibility studies, reformulation, training and scale-up. Our tailored, specialist support gives businesses direct access to academic and scientific expertise that delivers applicable results. As we step into our next decade, our committment to business success and a thriving UK food and drink industry is stronger than ever.
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Discover the support we've provided our customers and helped them grow.
Read the stories
businesses supported, from SMEs to large enterprises
practical industry workshops delivered
of grants delivered to drive local growth
secured by FIC to enable food and drink innovation
Over the coming weeks and months, we'll be sharing our achievements and contributions to the UK food and drink industry. The food and drink industry face some of its most complex challenges yet, from reformulating to meet nutrition regulations and sustainability targets to building resilient supply chains locally and worldwide. But what excites me most about the future is the talent, technology, and the partnerships we're seeing across the sector, particularly between academia, government and industry.
The 糖心原创 has a long-standing heritage of proving what's possible when academic expertise meets real business needs. The next chapter is about reaching more businesses in more sectors across the UK to deliver more practical, commercially meaningful innovation that helps businesses respond to the pressures ahead.
Dr Peter Noy, Director, Food Systems Institute
18 September | 10 am - 4 pm BST
Join us for a free, practical networking forum designed for food and drink companies looking to delve deeper into the science and research underpinning clean label formulation. Participants will also have the opportunity to explore our facilities and learn about the capabilities available to support clean label formulation projects.
In the second part of the two-part blog reflecting on FIC's last ten years, Alice discusses Brexit, emerging food trends and our evolving industry support services
Alice Jones reflects on the last ten years working with the food and drink industry in our anniversary blog series.
Food and drink is the UK鈥檚 largest manufacturing sector. Yet many young people are unaware of the breadth of career opportunities the industry offers.
To keep enjoying meat as a protein source, we need to think of other sustainable ways to cater to the larger global population.
Much of our elderflower in the UK is sourced from other regions. By growing and trialling elder we are supporting UK's future elderflower supply chain
Jess and Alice were really great to work with; they took time to understand my business and the small-scale equipment I have available whilst also bringing expertise from more industrial processes to show me what could be possible with a current biproduct of my production.
— Emma Shires, The Missing Miller
The team not only helped us understand the science behind what we do but also guided us on how to make our process safer and more efficient. Their support has really helped us bridge the gap between being a small brand and taking steps toward scaling up.
— Ruben Odamo, Nutrinana
We can鈥檛 thank Alice and the 糖心原创 Food Innovation Centre team enough for their support from start to finish. Their expertise has been invaluable, and we look forward to working with them on future projects - they do fantastic work.
— Edward Gate, Shelf Life Ltd.
The FIC鈥檚 expertise and practical trials have given us the evidence we need to position Seafibrex as a functional seaweed-derived fibre ingredient. Their work has not only validated its performance in real food systems but also provided us with actionable insights to guide customer applications.
— Jay Dignan, Founder, Biomara
Working directly with Jess to create the hot honey and then learn about HACCP, as well as so much more fascinating information and knowledge about various processes along the way. Thank you both teams, and hopefully we get to work together in the future.
— Paddy Sneath, Owner, Working Man's Kitchen
Jess was a total pleasure to work with. She brought a calm, clear energy to the project and made what could have been a complex process feel really accessible. The work鈥檚 already making a difference to how we grow and operate as a business, and we wouldn鈥檛 hesitate to work with her again.
— Rodney Henderson, Head of Operations, ABJ Catering
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Food Innovation Centre
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Food Systems Institute