Ming Foods Case Study

Ming Foods, a leading Chinese food manufacturer, approached GrantTree to file an R&D Tax Credits claim for experimental work developing an additive and gluten-free food product and a new cooling system for its production line. Here is how GrantTree’s tax and technical experts helped the company maximise its R&D Tax windfall.

Making dumplings

Ming Foods R&D Tax Relief Case Study

Ming Foods, a leading Chinese food manufacturer, approached GrantTree to file an R&D Tax Credits claim for experimental work developing an additive and gluten-free food product and a new cooling system for its production line. Here is how GrantTree’s tax and technical experts helped the company maximise its R&D Tax windfall.

The Innovation Challenge

Gluten-free foods aren’t new. Still, challenges remain replicating the elastic strength of wheat-braced proteins in gluten-free doughs. Some food producers have solved this problem by turning to additives and preservatives. But Ming Foods CEO Sam Duong wanted to develop a new dough that was suitable for his pastries and free from gluten and artificial additives. At the same time, Sam’s team wanted to devise an energy-efficient way to cool pastries quickly.

The Proof is in the Pastry

Ming Foods faced a number of technical uncertainties in creating the new dough and cooling system. For the dough, the team experimented with different natural ingredients to replicate the elasticity of a glutinous mixture. After trialling many variations, the team discovered a certain combination of ingredients that provided the needed resilience without adversely impacting the taste.

Cool Solution

To develop a new cooling system, Sam's team tried various ways of making alterations to the existing, on site cooling system. After experimenting with a number of new set-ups, the team found a way to use the inbuilt cooling system to cool its pastries in a small area and a short space of time. This increased the baseline technology and just couldn’t be done using off-the-shelf equipment.

GrantTree's Approach

Calling on our deep technical and sector-specific expertise, we scoured Ming Food’s development work and were able to uncover nearly £600,000 worth of expenditure that was eligible for the R&D Tax Relief scheme, including staff time, raw materials, consumables, machinery investments, and utilities.

Our specialists then converted the identified expenditure into a payable cash credit, leveraging the tax credits scheme’s surrenderable loss facility. This yielded a cash payout of over £125,000. 

Ming Foods reinvested this substantial windfall in additional R&D, building a second manufacturing line predominantly used for experimental products.

The Results

Costs Identified

GrantTree identified £579,000 of eligible expenditure

Windfall Maximised

Our work yielded an R&D Tax Credit worth over £125,000

R&D Accelerated

Ming Foods reinvested their tax credit into further development work

"GrantTree was the perfect tax credits partner. They really understood our technology and R&D, which helped us claim for every penny possible. We received the credit as a cash lump sum, which we immediately invested in new employees and equipment. This has helped us scale and enter new markets."
Ming Foods Sam Doung
Sam Duong
CEO

Expert support for your claim

Looking for help on your upcoming R&D Tax Relief claim? GrantTree’s specialists are standing by. Just drop us a line and we’ll be back in touch shortly.