North East England Food & Drink Group (NEEFDG)

Commissioned by One North East, the North East England Food and Drink Group is responsible for delivering food and drink activities in the region from 2007 to 2011. NEEFDG is a partnership led by Northumbria Larder, with Improve the Sector Skills Council for food manufacturing.

Objectives

Our objectives are: to raise the profile of NEEFDG and the food and drink sector in North East England, both regionally and nationally; to encourage people to support and buy from local producers and to raise awareness of, and promote training and skills development in the region's food and drink sector.

Approach

Press Ahead has worked with NEEFDG to establish its role as the driver of the food & drink sector in the North East. This has included: providing a proactive PR campaign; creating the brand and related style guidelines; working with The Journal on the establishment of its Taste platform; sponsorship of awards and food related series on Tyne Tees TV; project managing events and conferences; producing a wide range of marketing materials; establishing a database of key sector contacts; developing relationships with stakeholders and steering communications and contributing to the overall marketing and commercial strategy of the organisation.

Results

This is a highly complex and diverse sector, which juxta-poses business, agriculture, skills, tourism and other areas with a multitude of stakeholders and parallel agendas. However, through skilful management and communication NEEFDG had delivered many of its key objectives in the first 15 months since its launch and is well placed to create a step change in the success of food and drink in North East England going forward. The PR has so far delivered 42 million+ OTS and a media value of £150k+.

†This page links to a PDF document. You will need the Adobe Reader plugin in order to view this. Download the latest version of Adobe Reader.