Growing Kent & Medway aims to improve sustainable food innovation within the fresh produce, food and drink supply chain, by offering a share of £600,000 to businesses with 'innovative' ideas.
The Business Sustainability Challenge will award funding of up to £50,000 for ideas, processes, or technologies that aim to support sustainable production, products, and packaging solutions. The funders are particularly interested in projects that intend to create circular economies in the horticulture and plant-based food and drink supply chain.
GrowUp vertical farm in Sandwich, Kent
This is the second round of the Growing Kent & Medway Business Sustainability Challenge. The seven previous winners were awarded a share of over £262,000 in 2023. These Kent-based businesses were particularly concerned with finding ways to reduce the impact of food and drink production systems on the environment while trying to add value for their business and customers.
Dr Nikki Harrison, Director for Growing Kent & Medway, said: “The South East is fast becoming the leading region for food innovation in the UK. This is a testament to the remarkable achievements and ambitions of our horticultural growers, and food and drink businesses. Our previous winners of the Business Sustainability Challenge have demonstrated that innovation not only drives growth but also creates new markets and revenue streams in the region.”
The development of a new mushroom vodka
Canterbury Brewers & Distillers Ltd received over £13,000 to develop a system that uses waste grains, energy, water, and carbon dioxide from their brewing process, to produce mushrooms. Director, Jon Mills said: “After building a heat recovery system that heats our restaurant and bar from waste heat during the distillation process, I realized we could potentially use all our waste from our production of whiskey, beer, and gin making. The Growing Kent & Medway Business Sustainability grant has allowed us to prove that we can grow more than 100 kg of speciality mushrooms from our brewing waste. We are excited to see what further success our very own circular economy can have with the potential to bring new mushroom spirits to market!”
Mushrooms growing from wastewater, grain, CO2, and energy at Canterbury Brewers & Distillers
This grant scheme is for short-term projects, with collaborations encouraged. Successful applicants will need to match-fund 50% of the total project cost. The grant scheme is not for capital projects.
To find out more information, Growing Kent & Medway will be hosting an online briefing on Friday 1st March 2024 for anyone interested in applying for the grant. Register here.
Previous winners
Link to previous winner's video
Link to previous winner's article
| Nim’s Fruit Ltd | Aims to re-purpose fruit and vegetable waste by air-drying to develop new products. |
| GrowUp Farms | Have to goal of improving water efficiency by recovering and reusing their waste water. |
| Canterbury Brewers & Distillers | Trial the production of mushrooms, using waste grain, water, CO2 and energy generated by the whiskey production. |
| Totally Natural Solutions Limited | Develop hop products with the goal of creating no and low-alcohol beers. |
| Tensei Ltd | Using aocally sourced agri-waste as bio-fillers in plastic blends for use in fresh produce packaging. |
| Evogro | Producing microgreens, salad leaves and herbs in vertical farms. |
| AC Hulme and Sons | Aim to improve energy efficiency of the apple cold stores. |
For more information:
Growing Kent & Medway
www.growingkentandmedway.com