Consultation Paper
Our ambition to further develop Wales’ food and drink sector
We consulted on a successor strategic plan in 2019 to build on our achievements and aim to finalise that when the Covid crisis ends.
In July 2019 we published a consultation paper: Our ambition to further develop Wales’ food and drink sector and we received the views of a wide variety of stakeholders. We thank all those who took the time to contribute. A summary of the responses can be found here.
Strategic Vision Consultation Report
The respondents agreed with our proposed mission to develop a thriving food and drink industry through working collaboratively with the sector to achieve the following strategic aims:
- To grow our businesses’ scale, value, and productivity, through targeted investment, support, innovation and co-operative activity throughout supply chains, and by creating strong and diverse routes to UK and export markets.
- To benefit our people and society by providing attractive careers and fair work, committed to developing the skills of the workforce, using resources sustainably, and encouraging businesses to play a part in addressing public health and poverty.
- To create and communicate a global reputation for Wales as a Food Nation by showcasing our sector through Taste Wales, developing and living our sustainable brand values, widely adopting high production and accreditation standards, and celebrating businesses’ successes.
“If we don’t consult and understand what successes we’ve had, discuss the hopes and think about the successes that we can have in the future, then we’re going in blind. I think it’s really important that the Welsh Government consults with food producers like ourselves because they hear about the challenges we face on a day-to-day basis. Some of those are to do with how we balance growing our business, the help that we’ve had through the government. The fine food clusters have also contributed to helping us think about those issues. I think the more that the public sector invites the private sector to contribute to their thinking, the better it is for everybody. I think the support that we’ve had is absolutely fantastic, collaboratively working together, getting the brands out there. I think it’s important that Welsh Government consults with producers like us in terms of shaping the industry here within Wales in the future. We have a very innovative unique product and we want to work with Welsh Government to showcase that innovation really does come from Wales and goes out to the world.”
Let’s hear from three businesses who share their experiences
TREGROES WAFFLES
“We started in 1983, we thought we’d do it for three years to earn a small farm but that never happened. After 10 years we moved from a handmade process to a production line. When we started there was no Welsh brand, I think that is one of the success stories of the Welsh Government, they’ve really created an awareness for Welsh food. Three years ago, I started selling the Welsh company to my staff, life it too short, you want to be proud in life so I want people to feel ownership of it.”
BUG FARM
“The Bug Farm started back in 2013 as a research centre working farm, we launched the visitor attraction in 2016 and then my partner Chef Andy Holdcroft launched Grub Kitchen. What’s really important to us here with the future of food is having strong supply chains, and that’s something we’re working on now. We want the field to fork supply chain based in Wales, we’ve had superb support from Welsh Government and I think without the support that we’ve received we wouldn’t be here.”
THE PARSNIPSHIP
“We started the business about 12 years ago – it was a home-based business and we’ve sort of steadily grown over the years in to a unit that we’ve turned into a production kitchen. We’ve had a variety of different sorts of support over the years and recently support to help us through our SALSA accreditation. It opens up more markets for us to sell our products into, and work with some bigger companies to distribute our products to across the country.”
General Data Protection Regulations
Any personal details that you provide as a part of our engagement will be held by the Welsh Government under the General Data Protection Regulations. Please see attached a copy of our Privacy Notice, including details of how your response will be used and your rights under these regulations.
