Food Advisor

NO AGENCIES PLEASE

UK CANDIDATES ONLY

This role is temporary until October 2023.

Primary role will be to provide support and advice to food and drink SMEs delivered through the Broadland Food Innovation Centre project. This will include working with the ‘business tracking (CRM-database) system’ to maintain full records including details of support, financial and accounting records and required administrative duties for the project.

The main elements of the role include:

- Delivering support directly to businesses and managing our consultancy offering
- Contacting and onboarding eligible businesses to receive innovation support
- Advising and processing of grants to be delivered to businesses by a third party
- Development of new contacts and business networks
- Communications support within the project team and between the project team and external organisations
- Network development activities working alongside the Cluster Coordinator

Please note: European Structural & Investment Funds is funding this post.

Context
The Broadland Food Innovation Project will deliver a unique food and drink focused innovation ecosystem combining a cluster, business support, and a Food Innovation Centre.

The cluster, led by University of East Anglia (UEA), will provide opportunities to meet other businesses and knowledge organisations who can work together to accelerate R&D and commercialisation projects. The innovation support package, led by Hethel Innovation Ltd
(HIL), will provide practical support and facilitate access to financial support for the innovation process. The project will remove the barriers to innovation within the food and drink sector through the support package as well as the provision of food grade facilities comprising 13 bespoke food-grade incubator units, 2 test kitchens, and industry-standard sensory testing facility.

The ERDF project is a collaboration between Broadland District Council, New Anglia LEP,
University of East Anglia and Hethel Innovation Ltd. The Project Manager will be an employee of HIL but will need to work and manage seamlessly across all partner organisations.

Hethel Innovation is a leading incubation service in the region with two sites and over 150 tenants. Our goal is to become the leading supporter of high value technology SMEs in the country. What makes our organisation unique is the provision of supporting incubation services, such as our onsite business development team who are available to assist tenants with their improvement and growth plans. These plans include product development, design sprints, training in project management and strategy creation.

Other Job Information (e.g. any special factors or constraints)
This post involves close working with the private sector so may require flexible working, sometimes at unsocial hours.

The nature of organising events means that some physical movement of equipment and furniture may be required. You will be expected to comply with the procedures manual.

You will be involved in working in complex and potentially dangerous environments i.e., factory shopfloors, around high voltage equipment, food processing machinery. You will need to adhere to a wide range of health and safety and other regulations to ensure safe and legal operation.

This role Is funded by the BFIC project and therefore will end when the project does (30th
September 2023)

Principal Duties
- Provide consultancy-like business support and development services to businesses in the food and drink sector, or businesses linked to that sector through the supply chain
- Undertake research, mapping and engaging with businesses in the region, providing outputs that will create an understanding of key current and future sectors
- Develop and maintain relationships through regular contact, with key customers in

Norfolk, Suffolk, the region and nationally within both the private and public sectors and the wider region to fully understand needs of food and drink businesses
- Assist with the organisation of events and meetings - working alongside the Cluster

Coordinator, Events Co-ordinator and Project Administrator
- Broker / support collaborations between industry and research that deliver commercialisation of ideas and job creation
- Maintain a comprehensive business tracking system, the collation of statistics and outputs as required by the funding bodies, providing draft written reports and management information as required and ensuring specific administrative support for the ERDF project. This includes engaging with external auditors and evaluators as required
- Record information using project tracking systems and produce regular Key

Performance Indicator reports measured against agreed targets.
- Be a proactive member of the project team, striving for continuous improvement.

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Person specification

Knowledge and Experience:

- Managing relationships with key business and commercial leaders
- Commercialising new products, supporting innovation, a