Growing Maine's Food and Beverage Companies
The CEI Tastemakers Initiative, in partnership with FocusMaine, is designed to support, scale and strengthen Maine’s local food economy to be better connected, resilient, and sustainable.
The CEI Tastemakers Grant program will provide funds to established food and beverage companies to support a project that will help to meet a targeted growth goal. Food businesses can receive up to $25,000 of one-time grant funds.
Examples of eligible projects and expenses:
✔ Pursuing a strategic growth opportunity and/or strategic adjustment to meet long term production and capacity goals.
✔ Human Resources capability (job descriptions, goal setting & performance reviews, benefits analysis, training, etc.) & workforce attraction, and retention consulting.
✔ Facility design, site engineering, licensing and permitting (construction costs are not covered).
✔ Purchasing equipment and/or consulting services that will increase capacity to produce an existing product or capability to produce a new product.
✔ Consulting to optimize use of existing or new equipment or technology.
✔ Research and development for new products or product improvements.
✔ Consulting for quality management systems or food safety certification preparation.
✔ Consulting for process improvement to increase capacity eg. improved facility layout, continuous improvement systems.
✔ Consulting for strategic planning, financial planning, or feasibility studies.
Examples of ineligible projects and expenses:
x Construction costs
x Sales and marketing projects
x Purchasing inventory of raw materials (ingredients) or packaging
x Overhead costs including, but not limited to, staff time and travel expenses
x Vehicles
All expenses covered by the grant should demonstrate a cohesive project leading to significant transformation or innovation. The proposal should show clearly how this project will assist the company to increase revenue or job creation.
ELIGIBILITY
- Maine based company
- Must be an established business, beyond startup stage, with at least 12 months of revenue generation.
- Must source food ingredients from Maine agriculture, aquaculture, hatchery or fishery businesses. Farms, aquaculture, hatchery and fishery businesses are eligible.
- Companies that produce food and beverages for human consumption. At this time, we cannot consider cannabis or hemp businesses for the Tastemakers initiative.
- Recipients of Tastemakers funds in 2024 are not eligible to apply for 2025 funding.
- Projects must be ‘shovel ready’. All Tastemakers projects must be completed by 12/1/2025.
- Incomplete applications will not be considered.
PREFERENCE WILL BE GIVEN TO:
- Companies with a plan to increase revenue and add jobs within the year.
- Innovative projects that show a new solution to an old problem, create a new product, use a unique production method, or commercialize a researched product or process.
- Projects that build local supply chains with Maine producers or develop a strategy to increase the sourcing and distributing of Maine grown products.
ADDITIONAL DETAILS
- Applications are due by January 31st at 4:59pm.
- Companies selected to receive Tastemakers awards will be notified by March 3rd, 2025.
- Projects must be implemented and completed by December 1, 2025.
- Participating companies will be selected through a competitive application process. All proposals will remain confidential.
- Companies will be required to fill out a survey annually to report on impacts (including jobs created and revenue changes) for three years after the grant end date.
- Awards will be finalized during a project scoping meeting between the Tastemakers project team and applicants.
- Awardees will have access to CEI’s Business Advising, and Workforce Solutions team.
CEI will host a webinar to answer questions on Tuesday January 7th at 4:00 & Wednesday, January 22nd 10am