Why join FDF?

FDF looks out for the interests of both large and small food and drink manufacturers.

On your behalf, we keep a close eye on all matters impacting on our sector, leaving you more time to concentrate on running your business.

Join us for expert technical advice, early insights into issues impacting our industry and tap into opportunities to grow your business

Great reasons to join FDF
How FDF membership can help - Case study
Growing Your Business
Supplying the industry with skilled staff
Applying for FDF membership
Frequently asked questions

Great reasons to join FDF

On hand technical and scientific advice from our experts to help you cope with the latest issues
Early warning on legislation that could impact your business
Support dealing with challenging media issues
Access to online help, guidance and business improvement
Exclusive networking opportunities and discounts on events and essential training
Meet retail buyers and get ahead on retail changes and trends at our Sales Directors' Forum and SFDF Suppliers Forum
Get your voice heard on important issues affecting food and drink businesses
Enjoy partner offers on services, information and other events

How FDF membership can help

Case study: Saving on recipe reformulation costs

Combatting obesity by reducing salt, calories and saturates in products is a key aim of Government and the food and drink industry. However, not all companies have access to specialist advice to help them do this. Working with Scottish Government funding, our Scottish Food and Drink Federation helped member companies to reformulate their recipes so that products still appealed to consumers but also met the increasing desire for healthier ranges.

SFDF's Technical Manager worked with seasoning manufacturers Scobie and Junor to reduce salt in sausage seasonings by 20%, helping to meet clients' salt reduction targets and embracing changing consumer tastes. Further success was enjoyed by another Scottish seasoning manufacturer, Dalziel Food Ingredients who, working with SFDF, reduced salt in two seasoning lines by 33%.

View all reformulation success stories

Growing Your Business

Ambitious small food and drink businesses are the future of the industry and could be next big global brands. We organised a series of Grow Your Business events to help those embarking on a food and drink start-up or companies that have been in business for a while but want to scale-up.

Our first event in February 2015 saw over 50 companies gather to hear insights on all aspects on business operation from finance to labelling, tax and risk management, consumer trends plus an inspiring case study from successful growing business Moorish. Taking part in the event were FDF Professional Affiliates, our partner companies in sectors such as law, tax, insurance, finance and labelling who can offer a wealth of specialist advice to new businesses.

Next Grow Your Business event: 25 June in Manchester

Most FDF / SFDF events are available to members at discounted rates. Some events, such as the Sales Directors' Forum are exclusive to FDF and SFDF members.

Supplying the industry with skilled staff

Food and drink businesses rely on highly skilled staff in areas including science and engineering. We will need around 170,000 new entrants to our industry by 2020 and it is important that young people view food and drink as a positive career choice. Our Taste Success campaign works with FDF member companies to develop careers initiatives including the Big Bang national, annual careers fair.

A key role of FDF is to ensure our industry benefits from the most highly trained and well qualified staff so that businesses thrive. In 2014 we launched an MEng food engineering degree in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University to train a new generation of specialist engineers.

We are also working with Sheffield Hallam on the new world-class National Centre of Excellence which will help our sector to improve manufacturing capability, provide engineering solutions for energy and waste efficiencies and deliver packaging innovations through leading-edge technology and skills solutions.

With increasing demand for food and drink apprenticeships, we launched a successful commitment to double industry apprenticeship by the end of 2012. A year later, food and drink was identified as one of the Government's Apprenticeship Trailblazer sectors which means we have been working to make apprenticeships more rigorous and responsive to the needs of employers, particularly within the maintenance engineering discipline.