What is the future of regional food groups?

The news comes as some regional food groups are going from strength to strength, and the increasing number of producers cashing in on the ‘local food’ label are looking for support. We speak to deliciouslyorkshire, Taste of the West and Cornwall Food & Drink to find out what’s next for UK’s food groups.

Luke Shaw, commercial manager of Deliciouslyorkshire said, “All food groups are important to their region, sadly there are very few remaining active. Deliciouslyorkshire was originally funded by Yorkshire Forward established in 2001 is now 13 years old and no longer receives funding. Deliciouslyorkshire is completely self-sustaining through its membership subscription. We are now based at The Yorkshire Agricultural Society offices, appropriately, at the roots of food production.”

John Sheaves, CEO of Taste of the West said, “It’s easy to knock the government for not providing enough funding, but we have deliberately taken ourselves away from that pathway. Our board looked at this as long ago as 2004, and we started in 2005 to look at the various ways in which we could seek alternative funding. Basically, you seek funding from the private purse or the public purse. The writing was on the wall from the early 2000s, and by 2008, when the credit crunch hit, the government started to pull back very severely on funding. While I lament the loss of funding and the loss of HEFF – because they were a strong group – a few years ago we massively cut our overheads, and that’s perhaps something which could have aided HEFF. I’m sure they are working hard behind the scenes to maintain a brand for their region, how they will do that I don’t know but I hope they’re successful.”

Ruth Huxley, managing director of Cornwall Food & Drink said, “We’re the only specialist food and drink network specifically dedicated to our geographical area – Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. We undertake a whole range of things aimed at creating and sustaining a thriving Cornish food and drink scene that actively improves the economy. In particular we cover off those things that it would be impossible for an individual business to do on their own and for which our extensive knowledge of the sector is essential. We’re not suggesting that the whole Cornish food and drink world would fall apart without us but we know that we produce an economic impact that’s worth far more than our cost, both to individual businesses and to the Cornish economy as a whole.”