Better Food for All: Innovation for improved nutrition

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation is to invest up to £20 million across the three strands of the competition.

The aim of this competition is to support UK registered businesses in the development of innovative solutions to address significant nutrition challenges. Your project must have the potential to impact the nutritional quality of food and drink products consumed by the UK population.

This competition is split into 3 strands: early-, mid- and late-stage.

The Better Food for All competition is part of Innovate UK’s funding support for growing the future economy, as outlined in Innovate UK’s Plan for Action. This funding also includes a separate £16m pot for the Novel Low Emission Food Production systems competition. You must ensure you apply for the most relevant competition for your project.

Contact Innovate UK KTN’s Agrifood team for advice, and join our upcoming briefing events linked below, if you need help to decide which of these competitions is most relevant for you.

Eligibility for each strand

Early-stage

Your project must:

• have total costs between £100,000 and £500,000
• last between 9 and 24 months

Any UK registered organisation (business, academic, charity, not-for-profit, RTO or public sector) can lead a project, and you must collaborate with at least one other eligible grant claiming UK registered organisation. At least one business must lead or collaborate.

This stage is for feasibility projects as defined in the guidance on categories of research: analysis and evaluation of a project’s potential, uncovering its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats as well as identifying the resources needed and the prospects for success.

Mid-stage

Your project must:

• have total costs between £250,000 and £1 million
• last between 12 and 30 months

The project must be led by a business, and they must collaborate with at least one other UK registered organisation (business, academic, charity, not-for-profit, RTO or public sector).

This stage is for industrial research projects (see guidance): this includes planned research or critical investigation to gain new knowledge and skills, to improve existing products, processes or services.

Late-stage

Your project must:

• have total costs between £150,000 and £800,000
• last between 6 and 18 months

Projects in this strand must be led by a business, and they must collaborate with at least one other business. Non-business organisations can only be involved as subcontractors.

This stage is for experimental development projects (see guidance): this could include prototyping, demonstrating, piloting, testing and validation of new or improved products, processes or services in environments representative of real life operating conditions.

Across all three strands, all projects must start by 1st September 2023 at the latest, must carry out all of their project work in the UK, and must intend to exploit the results from or in the UK.

Limits on number of applications

Across all three strands, a business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications. If a business is not leading an application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.

An academic institution, research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not for profit or public sector organisation can collaborate on any number of applications in early and mid stages, and/or lead any number of early stage applications.

Scope (all strands)

The aim of this competition is to support UK registered businesses in the development of innovative solutions to address significant nutrition challenges.

Your project must have the potential to impact the nutritional quality of food and drink products consumed by the UK population.

Your project can focus on:

• enhancing food quality: innovative technologies and processes to improve the nutritional quality of foods and ingredients
• functional foods: foods with specific health benefits
• stratified nutrition: products aimed at particular demographics or groups
• fortified and biofortified foods: including processed foods, convenience foods and raw materials produced at farm level
• plant-based and alternative proteins: alternative protein sources for healthier and more sustainable diets, and processes that are accepted by consumers to incorporate these alternative protein sources into food products
• preservation, packaging and storage technologies: to increase shelf life including for healthy convenient foods and nutritious perishable foods

We would like to encourage innovations that:

• have the potential to improve nutrition in commonly eaten products, including across the convenience and fast food sectors
• are affordable and accessible to all

Your project’s innovations must :

• be sustainable in the context of environmental challenges such as climate change and resource scarcity
• minimise negative effects such as pollution, food loss and waste

If your project deals directly with food production, the related competition “Novel, low-emission food production systems” may be more suitable: our Agrifood team can advise you if this is likely to be the case.

Briefing events and support

Innovate UK KTN will be holding a collaboration building event for the “Better Food for All: Innovation for improved nutrition” competition on Thursday 12th January (10am-noon and 1pm-2pm: the 1pm-2pm session is dedicated to Knowledge Transfer Partnerships aligned to the Better Food for All scope).

The main briefing webinar for the “Better Food for All” competition is on 19th January at 3pm, and will be run directly by UKRI.

Contact Innovate UK KTN’s Agrifood team if you would like further advice on which competition to apply for, or if you need help to find a collaboration partner.

To find out more and apply for the different stages of the Better Food for All competition, follow the relevant links below. If you are unsure which strand is right for you, Innovate UK KTN’s Agrifood team can offer advice.