Digital investment fund open to food manufacturers

The funding is part of a £147m ‘Manufacturing Made Smarter’ investment by the Government in the UK’s manufacturing capabilities through the implementation of industrial digital technologies.

Now in its second round of applications, the first round involved UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) awarding 14 innovative projects across food and beverage, aerospace, automotive and pharmaceuticals a share of the £20m.

Raynor Foods – winner of the Food Manufacture Company of the Year at this year’s Food Manufacture Excellence Awards​​ – won funding with its digitized food supply chain project, The Digital Sandwich (see box below).

Investments of up to £50m ​

The £20m funding is enhanced by industrial investments worth £30m, creating a total pot of £50m.  Other projects looked at concepts such as digital twins, additive manufacturing and Internet of Things technologies across four themes – connected factories, connected supply chains, flexible manufacturing operations and design, make test.

UKRI challenge director Chris Courtney said the current challenges caused by the outbreak of COVID-19 underlined the vital importance of the UK’s manufacturing sector.

“There are enormous opportunities to innovate in this area, we have world leading industries, a powerful scientific and research community, a vibrant technology sector and I’m excited to see how this powerful coalition transforms the future of manufacturing,”​ said Courtney.

The Manufacturing Made Smarter challenge programme also aims to create a connected ecosystem of the UK's leading companies large and small, large technology developers and new start-ups and spinouts. UKRI hopes this network would increase the number of collaborations up the value chain. 

‘Strengthening the sector’​

Manufacturing Made Smarter industrial advisory group chair Hamid Mughal added: “We have tremendous manufacturing capability in the UK and recent events have reinforced the importance of strengthening this sector for national resilience and economic growth. ​

“This programme is a key step forward as it will help UK Manufacturing companies to jointly address this challenge and develop cost-effective digital solutions for deployment in our Manufacturing Sector.”​

Entries for the second round of funding are open now and close on 7 October. Funding of £20m will support innovative feasibility studies and industrial research projects, while small to medium-sized enterprises can apply for up to 70% funding towards project costs.

Meanwhile, innovations from across the food and drink sector have made the shortlist to this year’s Royal Society of Chemistry Emerging Technologies Competition.​​