Europe's biggest industry fails to keep pace with research and development spending

The food industry is still at the bottom of the global league table for research and development (R&D) spending, according to the latest European Union (EU) annual survey of the world's 1,400 top companies.

The 15 food producers included in the survey spent an average of e211m each on R&D, accounting for just 1% of total investment by business, and that was despite the food industry being the biggest manufacturing sector in the EU.

Car manufacturers topped the list of investors with an average spend of e900m on R&D. More than half (55.8%) of all the global R&D investment was made jointly by car manufacturers, IT hardware companies and pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms. But food producers had raised their game of late. Spending on R&D increased by just over 6.3% in 2004, almost double the average spend of 3.1% between 2001 and 2004.

Overall, the EU's spending on industrial R&D remained low compared to other parts of the world, such as the US, and was close to stagnation, the report suggested.

An EU spokesman said the figures also showed that European R&D spending was too reliant on government hand-outs.

Out of 700 EU companies, Unilever was ranked top food producer in terms of R&D spending, coming in at number 23. Danone was next, followed by Ireland's Kerry Foods.

Last year the EU earmarked e61m for five major food research projects.