A new £7 million state-of-the-art food business centre is to open in Shropshire with public funding.
The Shropshire Food Enterprise Centre will be opened by Coffee Republic entrepreneur Sahar Hashemi at an event which coincides with Heart of England Fine Foods’ (HEFF) annual Food, Information, Networking, Drink conference.
The new centre at Battlefield Enterprise Park, Shrewsbury, is managed by HEFF, the regional food group for the West Midlands, on behalf of owners Shropshire Council with funding from Advantage West Midlands.
The Shropshire Food Enterprise Centre is the first of its kind in the West Midlands housing 12 purpose built units for regional start-up and growing food and drink businesses, first class meeting, training and event facilities and the state-of-the-art Taste Kitchen providing regionally sourced food and drink and business opportunities for producers.
Sheila Dillon, presenter of the BBC Radio 4 Food & Farming Programme, Dennis Reid of RPS Global and David Jago of Mintel will all be present at the centre’s unveiling on 30 June.
Karen Davies, chief executive of HEFF, said: "Our aim is to make this the leading centre of its kind in the country and I would urge food and drink producers to get in touch to learn how we can support them in growing and developing their business to compete in the regional, national and global marketplace.”
A regionally-sourced lunch will be provided by HEFF’s new Taste Kitchen development chef Ed Warren and featured winning products from this year’s HEFF Diamond Awards which took place last month.
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