Scottish Wholesale Food and Drink Resilience Fund
Post Author:
Rona Burns
Date Posted:
December 8, 2020
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The Scottish Wholesale Food and Drink Resilience Fund is a new £5m fund to assist wholesale food and drink businesses affected by the current pandemic.
The fund is targeted at food and drink wholesalers who sell to hospitality, on-trade or public sector clients and who have seen sales fall by 20% or more since March 2020. It is intended to cover the shortfall in revenue and fixed operating costs such as business rates, rent, loan repayments, utilities and insurance as well as specific costs such as the loss of stock. The level of grant will vary depending on the business and the application.
Businesses interested in applying to the fund must be able to evidence they have been trading at a loss between April to September 2020, in addition to trading positively prior to this.
Applicants will have to provide evidence of projected gross revenues as well as fixed and additional costs for trading between October 2020 and March 2021. A calculation will then be made to predict the shortfall in revenue required to cover these fixed costs with grants covering up to 100% of the predicted shortfall. If the total value of eligible applications exceeds £5 million, grants will be scaled appropriately to successful applicants.
A business is eligible to apply if it is based in Scotland and:
- food and drink wholesale is the main or only part of the business (wholesale must equate to 80% or more of business turnover).
Wholesale is defined as being a route to market in the consolidation and distribution of multi-supplier stocks.
For example, a meat producer, food processor, or hatchery, who makes/grows/processes products as their main business but also carry out wholesale trade to local butchers or hotels etc. cannot apply as wholesaling isn’t the main part of their business.
- it has seen a fall in sales by 20% or more since March 2020
- it is classed as a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) that is, it employs fewer than 250 people and has an annual turnover of no more than 50 million euros and/or an annual balance sheet total of no more than 43 million euros
The scheme is open for applications until 11:59pm on Sunday 13 December 2020.
Applicants will need to provide: –
- the last three years financial accounts
- management accounts detailing gross revenue, variable costs and fixed costs for April 2019 to Sept 2019 inclusive
- management accounts detailing gross revenue, variable costs and fixed costs for April 2020 to September 2020 inclusive
- projected management accounts detailing projected gross revenue, variable costs and fixed costs for October 2020 to March 2021 inclusive
- furlough and Scottish Government support grants received between April 2020 and Sept 2020
- projected furlough income for October 2020 to March 2021
- details of the customer base supplied and % of their business attribution (i.e. retail, direct to consumer, hospitality, on-trade, public sector)
- business bank details
- evidence of hardship/difficulty (Management Accounts) and/or evidential statement of requirement for Hardship Grant
- details of other Government/Public Sector/Local Authority grants or funding received, or applied for where the application is pending determination, since March 2020
- employee numbers before and after March 2020
- identification (copy of passport or driving licence of person submitting application on behalf of the business)
https://www.gov.scot/news/help-for-food-and-drink-wholesalers/
The information in this blog provides only an overview of Scottish Government guidance and legislation in force at the date of publication and no action should be taken without consulting the detailed Scottish Government guidance and legislation or seeking professional advice. Therefore no responsibility for loss occasioned by any person acting or refraining from action as a result of the material contained in this blog can be accepted by the firm.
Photo by Eduardo Soares on Unsplash
