Regional food companies now have the recipe to secure orders from big high street supermarket chains thanks to a high-tech multi-million pound food park.

The new development in north Nottingham is an innovative business park dedicated to the needs of expanding food and drink producers in the East Midlands.

Driving the park forward will be an on-site centre offering specialised business support to both resident firms and companies working in the sector throughout the region.

The scheme includes 10 affordable, food grade units built on part of a former landfill site owned by Nottingham City Council in the Bestwood part of Nottingham.

The £4.7 million scheme is set to create around 170 new jobs for the area currently blighted by high unemployment.  East Midlands Development Agency (emda), in partnership with Greater Nottingham Partnership, was the major funder putting in nearly £2.8 million to the scheme with the balance of the cash coming from the European Regional Development Fund. The City Council made the land available for the park.

The business centre,  managed by the Food and Drink Forum, offers small and medium-sized enterprises access to otherwise unavailable technical and business support allowing them to meet the increasing technical demands of the major consumers.

Services include access to cutting edge industry research and scientific knowledge in areas like food ingredient manufacture, product testing, nutritional values and packaging. It also provides advice on engineering and process advances, graduate placement training opportunities and help for firms to get more involved with ICT and online trading.

The Food and Drink Forum provides a range of on-site services organised in conjunction with its partners including advice on improving technical capabilities, production and logistics efficiencies and increasing understanding of ICT and its applications.

Visit Southglade Food Park website