Food Northwest, which supports food and drink firms, is creating the Food Northwest Health & Safety Accreditation Scheme to win savings for a group of small companies.

“The idea was if they could show when they were audited they had improved [health and safety] standards, insurers would look at their premiums,” said Richard Morgan, head of the food and drink manufacture section at the Health and Safety Executive’s Agriculture and Food Sector’s operational strategy division.

Food Northwest operations manager Ed Bailey said: “We are looking at taking companies beyond the legal requirements to make them extra safe.”

However, Ian Edwards, partner at insurance broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson, said groups were often reluctant to suffer premium increases if a member had to make a major claim – often the flipside to such schemes.

The project is partly funded by the European Regional Development Fund and partly by industry and academia. Bailey expects to launch the scheme in the next two months.

Food Northwest is also funded by the North West Development Agency, which is being dissolved on April 1, 2012. But Bailey is confident that Food Northwest can draw on other funding streams.