Invest in food and drink in Yorkshire & Humber

Yorkshire & Humber has the largest concentration of food and drink businesses in the UK, contributing £2.7bn to the regional economy. So we really are the UK’s food capital.

And the outlook is great: year on year, the food and drink sector in our region is forecast to grow 3 times faster than the national average (12% versus 4%). Our region offers extensive, mature supply chains, comprising producers, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and one of the largest concentrations of distributors in the UK.

Yorkshire Forward is encouraging more businesses to invest in food and drink in Yorkshire & Humber: visit the Invest in Yorkshire website.

Size and scope

Food and drink businesses in our region generate 12.5% of the UK’s total food and drink manufacturing turnover:

• The ethnic food sector is growing at 15% a year
• The speciality foods sector is growing at 35% a year
• We’re home to a high concentration of breweries, producing almost a third of the UK’s beer
• The Humber area processes between 30% and 40% of the UK’s fish output.

We’re investing in this sector

Food and drink is one of our priority sectors, so we’re targeting special investments into the industry. We employ a sector manager and ‘strategic sector champion’ for food and drink, helping to identify opportunities for innovation through collaboration, and brokering relationships between businesses and the science base. Call Yorkshire Forward on 0113 394 9600.

Employers and the workforce

There are more than 15,000 food and drink companies in our region (of which around 1,100 are in manufacturing), employing a significant 18% of the workforce. 40 of world’s 200 largest industrial groups have bases here.

National retailers

Yorkshire & Humber is home to the largest concentration of national retail buyers in the UK, including Walmart-Asda, Wm Morrison, Aldi, Costcutter and Netto.

Innovation

Yorkshire & Humber leads Europe in pioneering market-focused innovation. We’re an ‘ideas region’, spending more on R&D in food and drink than anywhere else in the UK. We’re home to European and national centres for RFID (AIM UK) and food robotics (CenFRA), offering access to technologies that could significantly impact on efficiency and process costs.

Business in food and drink in our region can tap into the Food Chain CIC (Centre of Industrial Collaboration), based from the Universities of Leeds and York and The Food and Environment Research Agency (FERA). It offers an all-inclusive service and is a conduit for regional and national funding to support food research.

Find out more about collaborating with our universities.

Funding & support

We welcome investment enquiries from UK and overseas companies. You may be able to find funding support in our funding for businesses section, our business support page, and our priority sectors section. If you’re an overseas business interested in investing in Yorkshire & Humber, please also read our inward investment page.