How we are funded

We are a small, independently funded organisation. Our activities are entirely funded by the generosity of our wonderful Official Partners and Food Hero members. They are the Love British Food family. They are all passionate about British food and the work that we we do. 

Many people assume that we receive funding from the government or the major farming organisations. We do not. The reason for this is something called State Aid rules. State Aid rules prohibit the promotion of buying ‘British’ to the domestic consumer. The rules apply to the £2 billion Defra budget and also to the £56 million pound Agriculture Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) budget which is the main body responsible for promoting British farm produce.

This means that Defra can promote British food exports overseas but it cannot promote to the British consumer. Hence Defra runs a campaign called ‘Food is Great’ while Love British Food runs adverts titled ‘British Food is Great’.

And hence AHDB runs campaigns promoting ‘Lamb’ for example, but not with an overt ‘Buy British lamb’ message.

This is a bit of a Jackanory story and State Aid rules are not something that enters the common discourse much…so we wanted to explain!

The story has a happy ending though. It is entirely because of the stranglehold that these rules have on the major food and farming budgets that our tiny organisation has ended up punching so far above its weight. We have long been unique in being able to promote the ‘Buy British food’ message. And with the support of our Partners and Food Hero members we will continue to do so.