We have registered the collective as a Limited by guarantee company, ensuring that all the money generated is spent on supporting our members through events, training, commercial opportunities and projects.
The Food Innovation Cluster was initially linked to the Broadland Food Innovation Centre, a key infrastructure project aimed at fostering food sector innovation through the provision of state-of-the-art facilities and business support for food and drink businesses. The Broadland Food Innovation Centre played a pivotal role in laying the foundation for the cluster's activities, allowing food and drink innovators to collaborate, experiment, and access much-needed technical and business support.
The Broadland Food Innovation Centre project was a partnership between Broadland District Council, the University of East Anglia and Hethel Innovation, funded by the New Anglia LEP and UK Government. The work on the cluster was and is still being led by the University of East Anglia, and since the end of the initial project phase, funding has been provided by UEA, Broadland District Council with further funding coming from South Norfolk District Council.
The UEA hosts Tastebuds Collective and is the core founding member, alongside the initial partners Broadland DC and Hethel Innovation Ltd and the Norwich Research Park. Further financial support has been provided by founding sponsors Birketts, Lovewell Blake, 101 Websites & Apps, and Smart Messenger.
Tastebuds is proud to be supported by a group of founding members who have provided funding to enable us to maximise the support we can give through the membership packages, and to keep the cost of membership as low as possible.
Meet your Advisory Board
Our founding members will form an advisory board and will be joined by elected members of the cluster – all members can put themselves forward to be a representative. We will be drawing a random food and drink member to be invited to an advisory board each meeting to ensure you're being listened to and to gain a different voice and perspective.
Further to our advisory board we work closely with a range of local, national and international partners who help our members on their growth and innovation journey, these are our 'community partners'.
We aim to be transparent with our members, providing yearly updates on membership status, financial updates and progress relating to our strategy and outputs.
Over the past two years, we have been listening to our members’ feedback, and have developed a membership tier system based on business size.
View all membership options Meet your community partners
