Some of Scotland’s best-loved food and drink manufacturers are among the recipients, including Nairn’s Oatcakes, Rowan Glen, Bells Food Group, Simon Howie, and International Fish Canners. Local producers such as Bistrose, Nalan’s Homefood, and oat-based miso manufacturer Slow Sauce have also been successful.
Scotland’s bakery and butchery sectors are well represented, with reformulation projects from Luscious Lovelies Cakes, the Premium Bakery, Saltire Patisserie, Coopers Butchers, David Cox Butchers, and George Cockburn & Son.
Each business will receive up to £5,000 to kick-start a range of projects focused on positive nutritional changes. These include bakeries reformulating the sugar content in Scottish favourites such as doughnuts, empire biscuits, and celebration cakes, as well as innovative projects from butchers aiming to reduce salt, fat, and calories in popular products like sausages, burgers and even haggis.
Jenni Minto, Public Health Minister, said: “This fund has improved diets by removing hundreds of millions of calories from food and drink over recent years and I am encouraged by these latest innovative proposals.
“Addressing the problem of obesity, helping people eat well and maintain a healthy weight is a public health priority. We are taking wide-ranging action to support people to make healthier food choices, recognising the contribution which poor diet makes to worsening health trends.”
This fifth round of FDF Scotland’s Reformulate Challenge Fund was made possible due to funding received from Food Standards Scotland (FSS) and Scotland Food & Drink.
Joanne Burns, reformulation for health manager at FDF Scotland, added: “I am delighted to provide 14 of Scotland iconic food and drink businesses with funding to make their popular food and drinks healthier. We are looking forward to supporting these projects and sharing their achievements soon.
“Some businesses are looking to improve their Nutrient Profiling Model (NPM) score to meet non-HFSS (high in fat, sugar or salt) criteria, achieve salt reduction targets or address retailer and consumer demand for healthier products. We are working with Scotland’s food and drink producers helping to improve the health of Scotland’s people one product at a time.”