Tipperary Town Revitalisation Task Force has been awarded €50,000 in funding to develop a business case for a Food Hub in Tipperary Town. The funding is being made available by Enterprise Ireland under the Regional Enterprise Innovation Scoping Scheme (REISS) which is a fund designed to enable and drive the implementation of the recently published Regional Enterprise Plans.

The funding will allow the Task Force and its partners to develop a full project and business plan with the aim of applying for capital funding thereafter. Speaking about the funding, Task Force Manager Michael Begley stated: ‘This is one of the priority actions in our Strategy & Action Plan, we see food business as one of the sectors that has a lot of potential to drive job creation and entrepreneurship in the town in the coming years, so this will be an important first step in providing the infrastructure to incentivise that investment’.

Mr. Begley confirmed that the project will now go to tender, and that the Task Force hopes to appoint suitably qualified consultants to start working on the project later in the summer. A project steering group will be established to oversee the study and support the work of the chosen consultancy & design team. The consultants will be asked to produce a final written report and business case outlining the technical, financial and market viability of the proposal, which will be used to underpin the case for the development and to unlock both public and private investment in the project. The final design is expected to include food grade production units, training, R & D and other ancillary facilities aimed at supporting new and emerging food businesses.