Food research bodies set for Autumn merger
The Food Processing Knowledge Transfer Network (FPKTN) will join with the Bioscience for Business KTN and the animal-genetics based Genesis Faraday to become a new body called the Bioscience KTN in September.
Discussions are also underway with the government’s Technology Strategy Board (TSB) to convert FPKTN’s parent, The Food Processing Faraday Partnership (FPFP) - set up started in January 2001 as a ‘not for profit’ company - into a body dedicated to translating academic food manufacturing research into practical technologies for use by the UK food industry.
Since being set up, the FPKTN has facilitated the introduction of new techniques and equipment to increase the efficiency and quality of the food manufacturing industry in the UK. In future, as part of the Bioscience KTN, its role will be co-ordinate research and development under a much broader remit than food processing alone.
Attempts to get ‘food’ into the title of the new KTN, along the lines of Agri-Food and Biosciences KTN, as reported earlier this year by Food Manufacture, to reflect the importance of the sector within its activities have not proved successful.
The FPKTN has a turnover of £1.5/year, of which 20% comes from the TSB, a business-focused organisation dedicated to promoting technology-enabled innovation across the UK; 5% from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), and 75% from private companies. Over the six years of its existence it has run over 50 contracts for varies food companies and suppliers.
Speaking at its annual conference at DEFRA’s Food and Environmental Research Agency in York last week, FPKTN’s md Bob Marsh said: “Because we [FPKTN and FPFP] are separating, the Faraday needs to understand the best way to communicate with its client base.”
