Membership Benefits

Membership of South West Food & Drink

• Businesses can presently join South West Food & Drink for an initial six month free period, which shall provide basic membership benefits. After this time a nominal fee shall be charged. Membership is free for members of Taste of the West, Meat South West and other sector groups as they are formed.
• Application for membership is welcomed from food and drink producing businesses of any size within Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset & Wiltshire.

Member's Benefits

'What you get for your money!'

• Packaging
• Hygiene & safety
• Staff training & development
• Export
• Supplying the foodservice sector
• Supplying to multiples

Free online Buyers' Guide Directory of South West food and drink producers

Only members of South West Food & Drink are eligible to be entered for free into the South West Food & Drink Buyers' Guide, the only searchable online directory of producers from the region designed to be the first point of call for retail and foodservice buyers looking to source product from the South West. All you need to do to be included is to check the Buyers' Guide entry tick box on the Membership application form.

Introduction seminars with national retailers/foodservice operators

Building on our very successful programme developed in conjunction with Sainsburys, we offer you the chance to engage in seminars with the national retailers and foodservice operators. Enabling direct access to the buyers you have targeted together with a comprehensive plan to develop the necessary presentation skills and business offer required to attract them as customers.

Help in gaining entry to new/emerging market opportunities

We are continually searching for and identifying new business opportunities which could benefit your business and we offer specific workshops which will help you gauge their size and potential financial return. Then we facilitate interested parties in gaining a foot hold in that new market opportunity. One specific course we will be running is how to identify 'health enhancing products' and how to tap into that lucrative market place.

Formation of industry groups with common interests/needs

We already work together with existing sector groups such as Meat South West, Taste of the West and Organic South West to ensure that people with common causes can work together to combine expertise and focus help for their sectors by sharing knowledge, skills and resources.

Export opportunity events

Exports from the South West are approximately half the size of the average value of exports from other regions of the country. We will be working with export specialists and interested parties to examine opportunities and ways of re-dressing that balance.

Assistance with staff skills training

The food industry has for a long time seen skills migration away from what is seen a hard, dirty industry with, usually, anti-social hours. You need to attract new people in and be able to provide the training needed; but how do you do it and where will the money come from? Our skills associates are experts in their field and can help by identifying the kind of training and financial assistance available as well as, crucially, working with you to ensure you get it!  
 
If you would like your business to become a member of South West Food & Drink register here register here.