Access 6 Food & Drink Development Programme - Business Mentor for North American

Tender description

1.Background - The Access Six Programme This is a joint programme supported by three partner organisations: - Scotland Food & Drink - Irish Exporters Association - Northern Ireland Food and Drink Association The aim of this project is to provide a wide range of small and medium sized food and drink businesses with the skill-sets, professional marketing assistance and logistical support to successfully supply to the main markets in the UK and other major international markets. Within the partners areas we will recruit SMEs from the Interreg IVA region, which encompasses the West coast of Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the border regions of the Republic of Ireland. The key activities of the project will be: i.Creation of a series of six marketing clusters of SMEs focused on different UK and international markets. At the centre of each cluster will be a major distributor/wholesaler or retail multiple (known as Channel Partners) to enable the producers in the Region to reach consumers in these high value, volume markets. This brief focuses on the the North American market. We anticipate that we will recruit 15 SME’s for this market cluster, evenly distributed between the three partners. ii. Within this cluster we will appoint a mentor to provide these SME’s with the local business expertise required to successfully do business in that region and with a specific channel partner. This Tender request is focused on the recruitment of this mentor.