The Food Academy Programme is a joint initiative between the Local Enterprise Offices, SuperValu and Bord Bia to help artisan food businesses get into retail.
Food Academy is a training programme aimed at supporting and nurturing start-up food businesses. The Local Enterprise Offices have joined forces with Bord Bía and SuperValu on this initiative to provide a consistent level of food marketing knowledge to new and early-stage food business owners.
The aim of Food Academy Start is to provide small food business with a solid foundation to progress to the shelves of retailers. All participants in Food Academy will be given the opportunity to pitch their product to a panel of SuperValu representatives including the local SuperValu owner. The panel mentor the businesses, share their expertise and advice to allow the participants to make any changes they deem necessary to improve their offer.
The Food Academy Start Programme is delivered through workshop style training over 4 days and includes individual mentoring. It is supported by SuperValu in the context of retail expertise and providing a route to market. On successful completion of the programme, SuperValu will provide participants with the opportunity to trial their product in the local stores for a trial period of 12 weeks, providing an advantage for small businesses to gain feedback directly from the retailer providing an opportunity to further develop their product, marketing approach, packaging and distribution.
Resources needed
Finance and staff resources from the Local Enterprise Office, Bord Bia and SuperValu. The cost of running the programme which includes mentoring and workshops is funded by the Local Enterprise Offices.
Evidence of success
There are over 300 businesses participating in Food Academy supporting over 1,130 jobs
Difficulties encountered
Not all the businesses that complete the programme of workshops and mentoring progress to having their products on sale in SuperValu. Some Local Enterprise Offices don’t have enough applicants to justify running the programme and have to delay the programme for 6 months to a year.
Potential for learning or transfer
This Good Practice has the potential to be transferred into other regions providing a similar partnership can be developed by public sector economic development agencies and supermarkets.
Please login to see the expert opinion of this good practice.
Tags: SME, Competitiveness, Development, Support, Entrepreneurship, Retail
