Food and drink businesses across Scotland are getting a share of a £7.3 million pot being allocated under the latest round of the Food Processing, Marketing and Cooperation grant scheme.

The FPMC, one of a number of funding schemes which make up the Scottish Rural Development Programme, offers grants to food companies looking to increase production, expand storage facilities or purchase new equipment.

Under this new round of the scheme, 29 businesses of various sizes will receive grants ranging from £1047 to £1.4m. Projects include new processing equipment to increase production of healthier, low calorie dairy products, upgraded vegetable processing facilities and expanded storage capacity.

Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon said: “This funding will play an important role in helping producers continue to deliver high-quality, innovative and nutritious products that will be enjoyed at home and abroad – securing and creating jobs in our rural communities and boosting the economy.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has also underlined the importance of collaboration and a strong, sustainable supply chain," added Ms Gougeon.

The beneficiaries from this round are:

  • A Massie and Son, receiving £48,500 towards the £121,300 costs of an advanced dust extraction system for the high-speed potato grading and packing lines that were the subject of a previous FPMC award in 2018;
  • P Marshall & Co Ltd, receiving £61,100 towards the £155,800 cost for purchase and installation of a water cooling and grading system for cherries;
  • W & R Logan, receiving £530,000 toward the £1,325,000 being spent upgrading its Brussel sprouts processing facilities and increasing its capacity to store potatoes;
  • Simon Howie Butchers Ltd, receiving £279,600 towards the £799,000 cost of increasing
  • automation across all current processing lines in order to uplift production volumes;
  • Ian G Rae, receiving £1000 towards the £2600 cost of replacing a strawberry chill cabinet with a more efficient, digitally controlled refrigeration system;
  • Stoats Porridge Bars Ltd, receiving £58,300 towards the £291,500 costs of buying and installing a second protein bar processing line;
  • Albert Bartlett & Sons (Airdrie) Ltd, receiving £127,150 towards the project costs of £317,870 of implementing an optical sizing and quality grader that will operate on two lines at the company’s fresh potato processing facility;
  • Highland Fine Cheeses Limited, receiving £74,300 towards the £185,800 cost of installing a packing line for brie, a milk silo, a whey splitter, and a finished goods/ dispatch shed;
  • Benzies (Partnership), receiving £482,130 towards the £1,205,300 costs of building a packing
  • store/workshop/tray wash area as well as a new chill store to support the processing and packing of value-added prepared vegetable products and increase storage capacity;
  • Brown Manufacturing Limited, receiving £763,100 towards the £2,180,300 cost of a factory extension and new equipment at its Kirkconnel site (Brown Brothers) as well as the purchase and installation of new plant and equipment at its Prestwick site (Halls of Scotland) and its North Berwick site (Fenton Barns);
  • ABP Perth, receiving £1,357,800 to wards the £3,879,300 cost of the complete renovation of the existing boning hall, which will house new state-of-the-art Pace lines, comprising of smooth, continuous belts, ergonomic workstations, x-ray detection system and associated trim management conveyors;
  • Cairngall Farms, receiving £181,800 towards the £606,000 costs ofconversion work to create a milk processing building, a bottling line building and a packaging store on the farm, including the purchase of a boiler plant, a filling line, three milk silos, compressors and a glycol cooling system. Six tanks to transport milk to the company's vending machines are included in the overall budget;
  • Mackintosh of Glendaveny Limited, receiving £48,800 towards the £244,200 costs of purchasing equipment to remove existing and potential bottlenecks in its production process, including a robot palletiser, a capping
  • machine, interim product storage tanks, and packing system conveyors;
  • Highland Meats – A Division of Dunbia (UK) – receiving £245,000 toward the project costs of £612,500 for a slaughter line upgrade, DAF plant upgrade and rainwater harvesting;
  • J R Graham Ltd, receiving £520,500 towards the £1,487,300 costs of constructing a four-compartment shed at Drumtenant Farm near Ladywell in Fife, including two chills, which can each hold 2400 tonnes of produce and two ambient areas;
  • Graham’s the Family Dairy Group Ltd, receiving £1,184,600 towards the £2,961,600 investment in new equipment at the Glenfield Dairy in Cowdenbeath, including a new ultra-filtration plant with heat exchangers, and three new mixing tanks to increase the production of Skyr and Quark, and one new cottage cheese packing machine to increase
  • production;
  • A P Grewar Partnership, receiving £223,100 toward the £743,800 costs of the extension of a grain store at East Ardler farm near Blairgowrie in Perthshire;
  • Eyemouth Freezers Ltd, receiving £120,400 towards the £301,000 cost of the installation of a colour sorter at the Eyemouth Freezers processing site;
  • Hargreaves Farming Co Ltd, receiving £19,200 towards the £48,000 cost of installing a self-contained unit equipped to enable the pasteurisation and processing of the milk into marketable sheep milk, cheese, yoghurt and ice-cream;
  • East Neuk Orchards, receiving £13,400, towards the £33,400 cost of purchasing a mill wash, belt press, collection tank, pump and other tanks, four head gravity filler and data logger for apple juice processing;
  • J P Gray & Son, receiving £673,000 towards the £1,850,00 cost of a new potato and broccoli/cauliflower packhouse facility to enable potatoes, grown at both the farm and by other local potato growers, to be sorted using optical sorting technology on site;
  • Howden Eggs Ltd, receiving £48,700 towards a £121,600 investment in the company’s egg packing equipment, involving the installation of an automatic egg packing machine, a palletiser, a carton packing module, and the required conveyors for the new machines;
  • Oat Company Scotland, receiving £104,400 towards the £261,000 cost of upgrading its packaging operations with the addition of an automated packaging machine, palletiser and pallet storage racking;
  • J H Hamilton & Sons, receiving £344,200 towards the £860,600 cost of constructing new buildings and installing new equipment to improve the efficiency of the company’s potato storage, sorting, and handling facilities;
  • Yester Farm Dairies Ltd, receiving £19,3200 towards the £48,000 cost of installing nitrogen generating equipment and label printing;
  • Damn delicious Limited, receiving £102,100 towards the £255,200 cost of developing a new building comprising a modern butchery, bakery, packing area, chills, staff room and toilets;
  • The Firm of Corstane, receiving £28,800 towards the £72,100 cost of converting an agricultural building on the farm into a space where it can chill, process, package and store meat products for direct sale to customers;
  • Errington Cheese Limited, receiving £17,800 towards the £44,500 cost of converting an existing blue cheese maturing room into four separate units for the production of lactic goats milk cheese. The rooms will be built with specialist hygiene panels and the refrigeration system will be designed and specified by a specialist refrigeration engineer;
  • Angelic Free From Limited, receiving £16,300 towards the £32,600 being invested in new packaging and design and print set up, updates to its website and e-commerce, a PR launch campaign and a social media launch campaign.