Bake me a cake, brew me a beer and get me back some tax
Crowthers Chartered Accountants have been working with food and drink businesses throughout the Cotswolds and surrounding areas to assist them to claim Research and Development (R&D) tax relief.
R&D tax relief enables companies to claim back as much as 32p for every £1 they spend on product, process and service development. There are only two requirements that companies have to meet to be able to claim the relief. The first is that the development work they are undertaking must represent an improvement in their field. With the food and drink industry being so competitive, it is common place to see ongoing development to bring new products to market and to improve the efficiency of production processes. The second condition is that there must be some scientific or technological challenges that the business has had to overcome when developing its products and processes.
Four Anjels are an award-winning bakery based in the heart of the Cotswolds that make delicious sweet treats for the high street coffee shops. Crowthers have worked alongside Four Anjels to help them claim tax relief for the work they have done to develop cakes and biscuits that are gluten and dairy free, refined sugar free and raw. Four Anjels innovation is the key to their success, they push the boundaries in baking to produce ‘free-from’ products that taste as good as their ‘non-free’ counterparts, which presents them with lots of scientific challenges that they need to overcome.
Product development is the driving force behind their business, they have developed recipes and processes to make their hand made production as efficient as possible and have been able to claim back tax on the development of these bespoke processes. Overall, the company has claimed back £10,000s under the R&D tax relief scheme, which it has reinvested in their ever-growing team of development and technical staff and more new product development activities.
Andrea Stevens, Managing Director at Four Anjels believes that without the R&D relief, their development into new and challenging categories would be limited and they would not be able to push the boundaries in the baking industry.
Stroud Brewery has crafted a range of organic and vegan beers made with barley grown on the surrounding Cotswolds hills. The brewery is always seeking to expand its range of speciality and seasonal beers which involves lots of development work to get the flavour and aroma correct. The Company has developed beers with flavours of elderflower, cherry, lemon and pepper to name just a few and due to the high level of scientific challenge involved in getting the beer perfect, have worked with Crowthers to claim back £10,000s of tax relief under the R&D tax relief scheme. Stroud Brewery is very ecologically focussed and has also sought to develop methods to reduce its power and water consumption, which have also enabled the business to claim the tax relief.
Greg Pilley, Managing Director at Stroud Brewery stated that “Crowthers very quickly came to understand the technicalities of the brewing process and where, in what seems every day to us, could see innovation and development resulting in valuable tax savings.”
Crowthers Chartered Accountants would be delighted to hear from any food and drink companies that think they could claim this valuable tax relief. Crowthers also offer advice on R&D tax relief to many types of industry, including engineering, manufacturing, software, agriculture and technology businesses and offer all potential new clients a free consultation. Please call Sara on 01242 309001 for further information.
