Food Academy

Food Academy collaborates with small businesses on their journey the start up phase right through to getting their product on Supervalu shelves. There are currently over 300 Food Academy producers in Supervalu stores. Through workshops, mentoring and the opportunity to pitch to SuperValu store owners this is a unique opportunity to see your product on the shelf of one of Ireland’s leading retailers. Bord Bia, SuperValu and the Local Enterprise Office collaborate to ensure you have every opportunity to grow your business.

Programme Structure

The aim of Food Academy is to provide small food businesses with a solid foundation to progress confidently onto retail shelves. Crucially SuperValu also provide successful participants with the opportunity to trial their product in their local stores for a period of 12 weeks. This provides a real advantage to small businesses in terms of real retail learnings, as they are in a position to liaise with the store to gain feedback on their product from both the store staff and consumers. Such learnings will help the producer to further develop their product, marketing approach, packaging and distribution. 

There are currently over 300 Food Academy small producers in Supervalu stores. Half of all Food Academy participants expect sales to increase by 50% or more over the next 12 months

Deadline for FA applications is the 26th of April 2021

Workshops from August 2021 – July 2022

For more information download the Food Academy brochure here. 

For more information on how to apply to the program reach out to your Local Enterprise Office.