THE body representing the north’s food and drink processors has called on Economy Minister Diane Dodds to replicate a €100 million (£90m) capital investment scheme in the Republic to prevent food processors here falling behind their competitors.
The Northern Ireland Food and Drink Association (NIFDA) said a capital grant for processors was now “a matter of urgency”.
The Irish Government's €100m scheme will seek to boost beef, pork, lamb, poultry and dairy processors who are exporting their products.
It will offer firms up to €5m or 30 per cent toward investment projects of between €1m and €25m.
Similar schemes are already in place in Britain, offering support rates of 20-40 per cent.
NIFDA said the fact that Northern Ireland companies cannot avail of such funding puts them at “a significant competitive disadvantage”.
Executive director Michael Bell said the body has made little progress after three years lobbying for the grant.
“There were 15 or more business cases submitted to Invest NI. Most of these cases were delayed while our competitors are marching on with the backing of their respective governments and repositioning themselves with our customers.
“Our closest competitors also benefit from significant funding for food export marketing, which again we do not have.
"This is competitive disadvantage in the starkest sense," said Mr Bell.
"This weakness is obviously further magnified with Covid-19 and Brexit."
The Department for the Economy was contacted last night but did not respond.
Meanwhile Finance Minister Conor Murphy has confirmed that payments under Stormont’s largest Covid-19 grant scheme for businesses have now reached £113m.
The Localised Restrictions Support Scheme (LRSS) offers weekly payments of up to £1,600 per week to businesses forced to close under the health regulations.
The Department of Finance (DoF) this week said they will issue payments for the extended six-week lockdown in one lump sum. It means £53m will go out to around 10,000 businesses in the coming days.
DoF said 18,319 applications have been received for the grant, with around 10 per cent still to be processed. However more 6,000 applications have been rejected.
