Case Studies
Find out about some of the businesses Make It York has been supporting with signposting and guidance on funding support, and the impact receiving these funds will now have on their businesses.
Case Study: Bioelements
Bioelements is a bioscience business based in the Innovation Centre at York Science Park, specialising in organic farming technology suitable for the 21st Century.
The business operates in countries around the world but their focus in the UK is currently research-based, conducting field trials with farmers for further product development. Organically-certified, Bioelements concentrates on sustainable, biological farming practices rather than those using chemicals.
Bioelements has had a long-running relationship with Make It York as a business connected to the SIAFs (Stimulating Innovation in the Agri-Food Sector) ERDF-funded project. They were also signposted to and supported through the Ad:venture programme which helps businesses that are up three years old, and more recently have been working with Louise Saw, Business Growth Manager at Make it York.
Louise has been helping with introductions to businesses in the waste, agriculture and turf sectors, signposting to a grant to support field trials and help to find training and during the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted City of York Council’s Micro Business Grant scheme, which they applied for. The application was successful and a £1k micro grant was boosted to £5k through the Council’s Extended Discretionary Micro-Business Grant scheme.
This grant enabled Bioelements to run more field trials with local businesses to develop their products, at a time when investing in sustainable food production research for the future has become even more important.
“It has been great to work with Make It York and the support we have received for our business has gone way beyond our expectations.
We have been able to access connections that would have taken us much longer to do on our own, time which we have gained and been able to use to focus on our business and what we want to achieve. These connections have led to exposure that has helped us build on our reputation in our field. As a result, we are now seeing proactive enquiries coming to us and we have recently set up a partnership with a company to sell our products in the UK, Ireland, Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The grant funding from City of York Council took the pressure off at a time when it became increasingly difficult to bring money into the business, letting us focus on our important research trials and continuing to look to the future.
Any business looking for help to grow, develop, or just be supported as you navigate through all the funding information out there, should contact Make It York as we were able to access the information, support and funding we needed to keep the focus on expanding and developing our business operations.”
Dominic Fox
Commercial Director, Bioelements Agro Ltd