Research into the Scottish food and drink innovation landscape

This discussion document presents the results of a study to review the innovation landscape in Scotland for the Food & Drink industry and supply chain as it stands today and to establish if there are any gaps in current innovation infrastructure provision. The discussion document was commissioned by Scottish Enterprise on behalf of the Scotland Food & Drink Partnership (http://www.foodanddrink.scot/about-us/our-partners.aspx).

Engagement was carried out with consultation and through secondary research with 26 industry stakeholders across Scotland including trade and sector bodies, innovation centres, research centres and economic development bodies, to understand the issues and opportunities around innovation from the wider sector/sub sector perspective. A gap analysis was then carried out. It should be noted that this report serves as a discussion document for the Scotland Food & Drink Partnership to use as part of its strategic planning and development activities with industry.

A number of perceived gaps were identified such as for scale up/demonstration sites, but with consideration of the scale of absolute demand to fill these gaps, which was unclear. The report also identifies some issues in the wider infrastructure and support services to the food & drink industry that were identified by stakeholders at a time when the Make Innovation Happen (http://intranet.scotent.co.uk/Pages/SE-Home-Page.aspx) service was to be launched, which will go some way to address these.

Opportunities for further research and collaborative development have been identified to address the current and emerging innovation needs of the sector.