Funding has been awarded to 13 Scottish businesses to help them make their bakery product recipes healthier.
The baker’s dozen received amounts ranging from £1,000 to £5,000 via the Healthier Bakery Fund, which was established in May through a partnership between Food & Drink Federation (FDF) Scotland and Food Standards Scotland (FSS).
FDF Scotland said the fund aims to support food businesses with projects that will help improve the nutritional content of a variety of savoury and sweet bakery products including oatcakes, bread, cakes, desserts, and biscuits. Some projects will help reduce calories, fat, and sugar content, while others will enrich products with fibre or fruit and vegetables.
Activities boosted by funding also include accessing nutritional testing and technical support, working with ingredient suppliers to trial new innovative solutions, and developing new marketing and promotional materials.
“I am delighted to award funding to a wide range of popular bakery producers in communities right across Scotland,” said FDF Scotland’s reformulation for health manager Joanne Burns.
“We had so many great applications – which gave the judges a tough time in picking the projects to fund. I can’t wait to start working on these interesting projects – together we will be helping to make some of Scotland’s favourite bakery products healthier,” Burns added.
The 13-strong line-up of funding recipients includes:
- Stockan’s Oatcakes (Stromness, Orkney)
- Fisher & Donaldson (St Andrews, Dundee and Cupar)
- Dean’s of Huntly (Aberdeenshire)
- Cuckoo’s Bakery (Edinburgh)
- Northern Lights Cakery (Argyll and Bute)
- Bread for Good Community Benefit Society, trading as Scotland the Bread (Scottish Borders)
- Three Sisters Bake (Glasgow)
- Aulds Delicious Desserts (Renfrew)
- Cobbs Bakery (Inverness-shire)
- Stoats (Midlothian)
- The Hame Bakery (Aberdeenshire)
- George Marchbank Bakers (Dumfries & Galloway)
- The Bread Guy (Aberdeen)
FSS public health nutrition advisor Lesley Curtis highlighted that evidence showed reformulation, for example by reducing portion size or calories, is one of the most effective ways industry can help improve dietary health in Scotland. “FSS is pleased to be supporting the Scottish bakery sector engage in reformulating their products, which can lead to a positive change to public health,” said Curtis.
Back in February, another batch of 13 Scottish bakeries received funding via the FDF’s Reformul8 Challenge Fund to enhance the healthiness of their products.
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