This is a shorter newsletter early in the month because of two items:
- The Food Matters Summit is on 19-20 November and has a discount for Woven members.
- Government funding opportunities that close in January 2020 requiring anyone interested to act soon.
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Food Matters Summit
19-20 November, ExCeL London
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Food Matters Summit is the first event of its kind in the UK, connecting organisations across the food supply chain, bringing together disruptive innovators and established multinational companies to inspire thinking and accelerate innovation across the global food industry. There will be presentations from 100 international speakers and networking opportunities in tailored 1-2-1 meetings.
Themes include:
- The food revolution: feeding 10 billion people sustainably
- Tomorrow's innovation: defining the future of nutrition and food systems
- Feeding the future: how disruption is changing the food industry
Start-ups under 2 years old can be considered for a session pitching to investors and open innovation partners. Anyone interested should contact https://www.foodmatterslive.com/contact/contact-us .
We have secured a discount for Woven members. In order to claim this, email Matt at events@woven-network.co.uk, providing the name under which you became a member. He will provide you with the access code.
Event Website
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Current relevant government funding opportunities
For discussion in a Webinar for Woven members
There are a large number of different funding calls out at present all under the Transforming Food Production Challenge:
- Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) Future food production systems (closes 22 Jan 20)
https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/461/overview
- Agri-tech catalyst round 9: agriculture and food systems innovation, Africa (closes 8 Jan 20)
- UK-China: precision for enhancing agricultural productivity (closes 15 Jan 20)
https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/482/overview
The ISCF Future food production systems call specifically mentions insect farming.
Woven-Network has discovered from the funding bodies that they are open to bids related to insects as livestock feed. We learned what they are seeking, and what will be most likely to secure funding. This would have to be a substantial and ambitious bid with private sector partners willing and able to match the funding offered in a successful bid. It is a major opportunity to bring insect farming, and farmed insect material as livestock feed into the mainstream in the UK and make a real contribution to the UK aquaculture sector’s requirements for feed.
Woven-Network are willing to help pull a consortium together. We have some ideas for how this could work. We are also teaming up with specialists with considerable experience of securing finance and writing bids, to maximise the chance of a successful attempt. We also have contacts involved in insect farming in Africa and China, relevant to four of the calls for funding.
If you are interested in any of these calls and would like to participate with others in the sector who have complementary strengths or who would be strategic partners, please let us know. We propose to connect interested parties soon by Webinar. We will need some up-front information to enable the webinar to be useful to all. We do not have a date set for this, but will set one when the most individuals are available. If you are interested, please contact nick.rousseau@woven-network.co.uk, confirming your membership, and he will reply with a few initial questions.
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4 December 2019
Mitchelmores’ Sustainable Agriculture Conference: Innovating Change
We The Curious, Anchor Road, Bristol, BS1 5DB
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sustainable-agriculture-conference-innovating-change-registration-77091341277
16 January 2020
Novel foods in the UK - innovation, safety, and the evolving regulatory landscape
Westminster Forum Projects
Central London
Agenda https://www.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk/agenda/regulating-novel-foods-20-agenda.pdf
21-22 April 2020
Insects As Food and Feed meeting 2020
Natural History Museum, London
Further details will be circulated as they become available.
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