What is the Food Academy Start programme?
Food Academy is a training programme aimed at supporting and nurturing start-up food businesses. The Local Enterprise Offices have joined forces with Bord Bia and SuperValu on this initiative to provide a consistent level of food marketing knowledge to new and early-stage food business owners.
The aim of Food Academy Start is to provide small food business with a solid foundation to progress to the shelves of retailers. All participants in Food Academy will be given the opportunity to pitch their product to a panel of SuperValu representatives including the local SuperValu owner. The panel mentor the businesses, share their expertise and advice to allow the participants to make any changes they deem necessary to improve their offer.
The Food Academy Start Programme is delivered through workshop style training over 4 days and includes individual mentoring. It is supported by SuperValu in the context of retail expertise and providing a route to market. On successful completion of the programme, SuperValu will provide participants with the opportunity to trial their product in the local stores for a trial period of 12 weeks, providing an advantage for small businesses to gain feedback directly from the retailer providing an opportunity to further develop their product, marketing approach, packaging and distribution.
Programme Objectives
- Develop an in-depth knowledge of the tools which can be used to assess market background
- Understand core technical issues facing your food or drink business
- Learn how to grow sales for your product range through better branding and packaging design
- Gain all of the tools and knowledge necessary to launch and build a successful food business in Ireland
