Food, Drink & Agriculture Funding and Innovation Support
We help food, drink and agriculture businesses fund innovation and reduce operating costs, from R&D tax relief and grants to energy cost reliefs and capital allowances.
Food, Drink & Agriculture Funding and Innovation Support
We help food, drink and agriculture businesses fund innovation and reduce operating costs, from R&D tax relief and grants to energy cost reliefs and capital allowances.
Food, drink and agriculture businesses can fund innovation and cut operating costs through several Government programmes.
High energy costs, net zero targets and retailer demands mean constant change: new recipes, new processes, new equipment. Much of that counts as innovation.
Several incentives can work together. R&D tax relief recovers part of the cost of development work, grants share the risk of new ideas, energy cost reliefs cut the levies on your bills, and capital allowances reduce the tax cost of new plant and buildings.
We help you work out which apply to your business and how they fit together.
From the first idea to running a more efficient site, these are the incentives most relevant to the sector.
R&D Tax Relief
Many businesses in the sector carry out qualifying R&D without realising it.
For example:
✓ Reformulating to cut salt, sugar or fat without losing taste or shelf life
✓ Developing robotics, sensors or software for planting, harvesting or livestock monitoring
✓ Trialling crop varieties, feed formulations or growing methods
Grant Funding
Grants reduce the risk of early-stage and collaborative projects.
For example:
✓ Innovate UK agri-food competitions
✓ Regional grants for new production capacity
✓ Collaborative projects with universities
Energy Cost Reliefs
Cooking, chilling, drying and brewing use a lot of energy, and taxes and levies add substantially to the bill.
For example:
✓ BICS for eligible manufacturers
✓ Climate Change Levy reliefs for qualifying processes
✓ An initial review of where you may qualify and what it is worth
Capital Allowances
Investment in plant and buildings can attract significant tax relief.
For example:
✓ New processing or bottling lines
✓ Cold stores and grain dryers
✓ Fit-outs of new or refurbished premises
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Intellectual Property
Protect what you develop and set up future Patent Box claims.
For example:
✓ New processes
✓ New equipment designs
✓ Novel formulations
ESG
Retailers and food service customers increasingly ask suppliers for carbon data and reduction plans.
For example:
✓ Building a low-carbon strategy
✓ Reporting to customer and supply-chain requirements
Developing new recipes, ingredients or plant-based alternatives
Extending shelf life through new preservation or packaging methods
Reducing energy, water or waste in processing
Scaling a kitchen recipe to consistent factory production
Controlled-environment, vertical or glasshouse growing systems
Improving livestock health, breeding or feed efficiency
New production lines, cold storage or farm buildings
Energy-intensive processes such as drying, chilling or malting
Automating handling, grading or packing
Precision agriculture, sensors and data systems
Trialling regenerative or reduced-input growing methods
Reducing emissions from livestock, fertiliser or machinery
