Scottish News
engaging with more than 100 businesses, having been established as the regional tool for supporting restaurants, bars and cafés among other food businesses. It also aims to add to the 700,000 visitors the area welcomes each year, 150,000 coming from the cruise liners that arrive in Greenock. One of the ways it has been doing that is through the launch of the area’s first food and drink guide as well as a trail that is available on the Taste Inverclyde website.
The project organisers have also launched the Taste Tent where producers from in and around Inverclyde can showcase their goods at events including Gourock Highland Games and Scotland’s Boat Show in Inverkip.
Andrew Bowman (Head of Business Investment - Ri), Craig Strachan (Co-Founder - SUDL), Hannah Fisher (Co-Founder SUDL) and Gerry McCarthy (Chair - Ri)
While Bowman acknowledges that there were more straight- forward sites to base the hub, regeneration is at its core with half of Baker Street’s funding coming from the Scottish Government’s Regeneration Capital Grant Fund. The other half includes more than £600,000 from Riverside Inverclyde as well as £300,000 from Inverclyde Council. Inspiration came largely from Northern Ireland’s College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE), which contains a food business incubation centre. It has eight food processing units to facilitate entrepreneurs and already established food businesses wanting to develop and test new ideas. Bowman says: “It has been established for 20 years and it enabled us to learn from their experiences and understand if there is anything they would do differently, what the market has told them, where have their successes and challenges been. From that we were able to sculpt our own version and we can’t thank CAFRE enough for their help.”
The team also visited economic development agency Opportunity North East in Aberdeen to find out more about growth and sustainability. It is not just through Baker Street that Ri is rebuilding Inverclyde’s reputation for food and drink innovation. The organisation launched Taste Inverclyde in December and it is already
Bowman says: “Once Baker Street is in place I think that there will be a really unique offering in Inverclyde compared to other areas and it should lead to further opportunities for growth. We have been able to attract four new food and drink-based businesses now in Inverclyde before Baker Street is operational, and I think that the focus with Taste Inverclyde is beginning to equate to growth. Ultimately we have achieved what we set out to achieve, we are seeing an increase in manufacturing which in turn creates more jobs for Inverclyde within the sector.” The organisation is working closely with the West College of Scotland, Glasgow Caledonian University, Edinburgh University, the Knowledge Transfer Network and Opportunity North East to pilot a best practice educational support for businesses.
Bowman adds: “Scotland Food & Drink has been a huge support for us as well through networking and putting us in touch with the right companies and individuals to find the right development. Our aim is to take Inverclyde into the top 25 local regions [for food and drink production] by 2022 and that is in reality what has inspired the Baker Street hub to be built.”
For more details on the Baker Street development visit:
www.riversideinverclyde.com or contact Andrew Bowman on
andrewb@riversideinverclyde.com
COMMERCIAL PROPERTY MONTHLY 2018
21
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85
