Novel low-emission food production systems: Investor Partnership

Innovate UK, as part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £3 million to fund innovation projects in this competition.

We will be working with a selected pool of investor partners, who have demonstrated that they have the credibility, capability, capacity, and appetite to invest in innovative, technology-led businesses.

The Novel Low Emission Food Production systems competition is part of Innovate UK’s funding support for growing the future economy, as outlined in Innovate UK’s Plan for Action.

The aim of this competition is to support UK registered micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to develop novel food production systems. These will be to create new sources of resource efficient, low-emission foods, particularly proteins, while delivering healthy and sustainable diets.

Your project must progress emerging novel food production systems towards commercial viability with the ability to supply mainstream consumer markets.

Your proposal must:

• have the potential to significantly shift the current state of the art in at least one of seven priority areas
• leverage UK strengths and expertise to create new production systems and technologies

To be offered grant funding your project must:

• be assessed as eligible for grant funding
• have secured aligned investment with a lead investor from the pool

You can view here the areas of expertise and investment preferences for the investors.

You can apply for this competition before you speak to an investor but initiating dialogue with investors is encouraged.

In addition to investment, the lead investors in the pool can provide you with commercial acumen in, for example:

• leadership
• market access
• skills
• resources

Successful UK registered SME’s will receive:

• grant funding from Innovate UK
• aligned investment funding with one of the programme’s pool of investors acting as the lead investor

In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated.

Eligibility

Your project

Your project must:

• have total costs between £750,000 and £3 million
• start by 1 March 2024
• last 18 months
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

You must only include eligible project costs in your application.

Under current restrictions, this competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian and Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian and Belarusian source.

If your project’s total costs or duration falls outside of our eligibility criteria, you must provide justification by email to support@innovateuk.ukri.org at least 10 working days before the competition closes. We will decide whether to approve your request.

If you have not requested approval or your request has not been approved by us, you will be made ineligible. Your application will not be sent for assessment.

Lead organisation

To lead a project your organisation must:

• be a UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)
• be prepared to negotiate heads of terms for an aligned private investment

More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to support UK registered micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to develop novel food production systems. These will be to create new sources of resource efficient, low-emission foods, particularly proteins, while delivering healthy and sustainable diets.

Your proposal must:

• demonstrate your ambition to finalise a late-stage innovation
• show your potential to grow and scale your business through successful negotiation of investment from a lead investor associated with the competition
• provide a coherent project plan which integrates into your business strategy

We encourage projects that:

• develop the UK alternative protein industry sector to meet domestic consumer demands for alternative proteins and export opportunities for the technologies, products and services developed
• establish world leading Total Controlled Environment Agriculture (TCEA) capacity or semi-controlled environment production systems such as glasshouses or polytunnels, reducing horticulture imports and developing technology exports
• establish sustainable, resilient and healthy local food supply chains, which can decarbonise other sectors through circular economy approaches and co-location of food production adjacent to other industries
• realise unmet consumer demand for healthier, more sustainable alternative food products through the creation of new UK products
• establish new alternative protein sources that address the UK’s reliance on imports and deliver against government net-zero and environment targets, this can include work on functional groups such as lipids for food product formulation

Your proposal must describe how your project:

• will support the development of novel production systems that create new sources of resource efficient, low-emission foods, particularly proteins, while delivering healthy and sustainable diets
• outputs will progress emerging novel food production systems closer towards commercial viability and be able to supply mainstream consumer markets

Portfolio approach

We want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies and markets. We call this a portfolio approach. We will show preference to applications and investments that demonstrate greater additionality and reduced risk alongside those with a higher ratio of investment to grant.

Specific themes

Your project must have the potential to significantly shift the current state of the art in one or more of the following seven priority areas:

• plant based products or production systems
• acellular food production, for example, algal, bacterial or fungal fermentation systems
• cellular food production, for example, cell culture systems for meat production
• novel aquaculture systems, for example, fin-fish and shell-fish
• new food production systems, for example, insect farming, seaweed cultivation and other alternatives to traditional animal production systems
• Total Controlled Environment Agriculture (TCEA) systems
• improvements to semi-controlled environment production systems such as glasshouses or polytunnels

Research categories

We will fund experimental development projects only, as defined in the guidance on categories of research.

Projects we will not fund

We are not funding projects that:

• are equine specific
• involve wild caught fisheries or traditional inshore aquaculture systems
• focus on non-food or non-feed applications and markets
• focus on incrementally improving traditional UK animal production systems
• are not carried out by single SMEs
• are collaborative research and development (R&D) projects
• are not part of a company’s growth plan
• are unable to prove there is potential for return on investment and growth

We cannot fund projects that are:

• dependent on export performance, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country
• dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product

Key dates

8 May 2023 – Competition opens
9 May 2023 – Online briefing event: register to attend
5 July 2023 11:00am – Competition closes
11 August 2023 – Notification of Innovate UK assessment
13 November 2023 – Deadline to reach heads of terms with lead investor
17 November 2023 – Applicants notified