John Adams, chief executive of Food From Britain (FFB), has admitted the body may have no future whatsoever after hearing its government funding would be totally pulled in three years.
The organisation has had the dual role of helping to promote regional food groups and facilitating exports of British food and drink. Its government funding had only been pledged up until 2011 in any case. But the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) is having to tighten its belt and has informed FFB that it will cease to back it financially in three years.
FFB is switching its focus away from regional food groups to deal exclusively with promoting networks, but its ability to perform even this role now seems doubtful, said Adams. “DEFRA have announced that core government funding will be cut to zero within the next three years.
“Under previous plans, FFB would anyway have been focusing entirely on export support work from [April] 2008. The question we shall need to address over the next few weeks is what sort of a long term future (if any) there may be for FFB in the longer term, without DEFRA core funding.”
Meanwhile, the Alliance of Regional Food Groups is taking on the co-ordination of UK regional food groups. The eight core regional groups now come under its umbrella, including Regional Food Group for Yorkshire and Humber, Heart of England Fine Foods and Taste of the West. The groups will also work with their corresponding Regional Development Agencies (RDAs).
John Sheaves, chairman of the Alliance, claimed much of the government’s funding was being diverted to its climate change strategy overseas. “But pulling support for regional food groups is odd, given that regional food could contribute to environmental strategies,” he said.
The Alliance also has to face its own funding questions, as it has traditionally been funded partly by the RDAs and partly through FFB by DEFRA. However, Sheaves said it had commercial interests, which included consultancy work, from which it could generate cash.