Looking ahead: 3 reasons to get involved

Whilst we enjoyed 2024, launching Tastebuds Collective, and seeing our members’ businesses struggle, stabilise, grow, become mature main-stays in the local food and drink scene, we are always forward focussed, and can’t wait to work with you all in 2025.

There are always uncertainties in the world, change of tax rules, and geopolitical pressures. It leaves us feeling slightly powerless, and it takes its toll through higher business costs.

This article is not doom and gloom, we promise. This is an article about hope, positive stories, and what we can do, in our control, to make our region, our country, an amazing place for food and drink products, businesses, people and innovation.

Tastebuds Collective has a lot in store already and we think it could be a landmark year for the sector. Here are a few reasons why you should give us a call and get involved:

1  Amazing opportunities for your business

We are ideally placed, working closely with our advisory board sponsors, to get access to opportunities that can help grow your business, bring insight, extra pairs of hands, knowledge and just sometimes an idea.

As you may know, we are big on collaborations, and work closely with multiple schools within the University of East Anglia, Norwich University of the Arts, and the institutes on the Norwich Research Park.

Upcoming this year we have:

• Collaborations with Norwich Uni, working on rebranding and designing graphics for some of our members

•           Full-time student placements over 3 months this summer, working on anything data insight and business management. Those placements are free to access for members. They are worth over £8,000 to your business. Sign up here and get in touch to find out more and get the ball rolling. We have space for up to 30 business projects in 2025 - that's £240,000 worth of projects!!

•           2-week consultancy projects, we have been sponsor of the Deakin University and UEA collab projects for 3 years now, helping 12 businesses gain access to free consultancy over that period. This year, we have two similar opportunities. The success of the Australian university model was such, that a Canadian partner university of the UEA want to explore the same activities. We will be reaching out to members as soon as this is finalised, with the process to get involved. Again, this will be free for members!

    Events galore – there will be something for everyone!

We have an ever-evolving plan of events for 2025. From webinars on fulfilment and unlocking business scale-up to branding conference and of course, our flagship Nourish Conference in April, in Norwich. A list of highlights below:

• 25th February: unlock the power of branding, stand out on that shelf! Working with Brandland, we’re super excited to bring a slightly different type of event to our calendar. This event includes a pitching session, in front of the audience and a jury. The winner wins a free consultation with a branding agency. You may also be pitching to someone who could be the difference maker for your business

• 9th April: Nourish Conference and Tastebuds Market. New format to our conference, including a food and drink market, just before Easter and in central Norwich. Spending the day at Nourish will bring knowledge, connections and hopefully, income. That’s a triple win! For non members, a stand costs £50 for the day, for members, that’s just £25 – which includes tables, electricity… We have space for 40 stands, so get in there first!

• Date TBC: we are working to organise a food and drink collaborations award. We know you work together on collabs, supporting each other, or working on student projects. We want to promote how great our members are at working as a collective, growing the sector, working to overcome challenges, to create jobs, to be more sustainable, to support social supermarkets and food banks, to improve the supply chain and generally just being awesome businesses. Let’s celebrate this together. We will be looking at organising this over a period of a few weeks, to open to the general public as a gallery, with the public voting for their favourites. Prizes for the winners to be confirmed! Let us know if you’re interested in taking part, or even sponsoring the event!

•          Many more events, webinar, workshops already listed on our events page, check it out here.

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    Chatting to us can help – really!

I have opened my diary for at least 9 meeting slots per week, and will open more if it becomes really popular. Why? Because a quick call to discuss an issue, help needed, an idea, funding opportunities, suppliers required, anything, can help unlock your next steps.

I am also available to discuss business plans, insight, sales tips, routes to market, marketing, packaging – sometimes it’s also just someone to moan to!

Don’t take it from me, take it from some of our members “quote/case study”

We aim to be a google search engine, with the added benefit of having a human touch to the AI. We know people, and we know you. That means we don’t just provide you with the first name on the google search engine. We link you with the people we feel can do the best job, help at the right scale, and have the tools and support there to help both parties thrive. It’s meaningful connections.

On top of merely being a facilitator, we have recruited our very own team of mentors and business advisors. Each have agreed to work with Tastebuds to donate time to the industry. You will soon see them be listed as our very own Tastebuds team on the contact page. We will be presenting them shortly. But they will cover topics such as business coaching, general business mentorship, e-commerce surgeries, drinks manufacturing and routes to market support, flavours and new product development…and more to come.

  Other reasons that didn’t make the cut:

• Trade directory: we’ll be revamping and relaunching our trade directory, both online and in paper version. As paid members, you will receive it in the post, so old school! Make sure you get the most out of this opportunity.

• Offers: our sponsors and partners have offers waiting for you on the paid portal: get discounts on some of the essential services you need as a business. We hope it offsets your membership costs – which in turn enable us to deliver even more tailored support for the industry.

• Upcoming projects we are involved in: we are continually working on funding bids for the sector, such as hosting PHD students in food safety/gut health, or supporting food systems research bids. We are also continually working with the public sector partners locally to ensure food is on the agenda. Ask your local district team, they might already be sick of the sight of us!

Want to chat before you register? My diary is open to booking here.

Let’s make 2025 tasty.

Alex

Author: Alex Larter, Managing Director, Tastebuds Collective