Taste of Arran tastes success

Scottish food firm Taste of Arran has secured £40,000 funding towards a £67,000 project to develop a joint production facility and tourism centre of excellence.

Until now, Taste of Arran has acted as a single point of sales, marketing and distribution for 11 local food and drink producers, which make oatcakes, cheeses, mustards, beers and ice-creams. Three of these suppliers will now assess the potential to restructure their current manufacturing businesses under Taste of Arran, which will allow increased production capacity and new product development opportunities.

The production, storage and dispatch centre will be powered by renewable energy. This will provide a platform for growth, which will see the company achieve sales of £3M in the next four years, claimed the firm. It will also result in significant cost savings, creating considerable market advantage in the growing speciality food market, it added.

The Scottish government’s economic development agency Highlands and Islands Enterprise will provide £30,000 of support and the company’s local authority, North Ayrshire Council, will contribute £10,000 to the project.

Paul Mclaughlin, chief executive of Scotland Food & Drink said: “The business model being created on Arran will be scalable and we look forward to the learnings and outputs from this initiative being shared with other food producing island and rural areas to allow further collective opportunities to be developed. This is a fantastic example of how collaboration and a common purpose can help drive economic growth with the benefits being shared by everyone involved.”