Food innovation funding to support health and wellbeing

Innovate UK, in partnership with the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, is investing up to £2.5 million in early feasibility projects focusing on diet and health innovation

This funding aims to support UK registered businesses and research organisations in the design and development of innovative food products to support sustained health and wellbeing.

This competition is open to collaborations only. To lead a project, your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size or a research organisation eligible for UK Research and Innovation funding.

Proposals must have the potential to impact the nutritional quality of food and drink products consumed by the UK population.

Projects can focus on one or more of the following:

• functional and novel foods to support healthy ageing across the life course
• biofortification as an approach to target delivery of bioactive compounds
• probiotics and prebiotics to maintain or promote a gut microbiome and metabolome that could improve health

This funding is for early feasibility projects, as defined in the guidance on categories of research.

Your project's total costs must be between £100,000 and £250,000.

Find out more about this diet and health innovation competition.

Potential applicants can register to join an online briefing event on Monday 19 February 2024 at 11:30am.

First published 12 February 2024