CenFRA, Europe's centre for food robotics and automation, is helping small businesses tackle the recession with a campaign designed to support them in maximising productivity and profits to ensure their future sustainability.

It is offering businesses in the north of England free technology audits, while there is only a modest charge made for this same service to those operations located beyond this region. It hopes to help stimulate ideas, while highlighting the positive impact innovative automation solutions can have for smaller food and drink companies.

CenFRA is confident that its impartial, quality advice can kick-start the innovative thinking required to enable small businesses to emerge from the downturn stronger than before.

The company is also able to provide the knowledge required for a bespoke technology roadmap for the future, which identifies opportunities where automation can improve a company's productivity and competitiveness.

By engaging with CenFRA, businesses can tap into the company's ability to organise, as well as host, seminars, training days, and best practice updates. It can provide expertise on the latest technologies, production processes and methods related to automation and directly applicable to the food and drink manufacturing sector.

John Wright, the national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: "Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy and this is a hugely difficult and testing year for them. We all want the storm of recession to end and small businesses are the sector to fire up the British economy.

"We have already seen some measures to help small businesses through these difficult times but we need to see more."

Small businesses engaging with Doncaster-based CenFRA, which is an organisation totally independent of robotic manufacturers, integrators and auxiliary equipment suppliers, will also learn about any available grants and the leading academic institutions CenFRA is able to call on to further assist them if required.