Idea to Aisle, a day with the people who can get your product shelf ready
Thursday 8 October 2026, 10am to 3.30pm, Conference Centre, Queen Margaret University, Musselburgh, Edinburgh.
Thursday 8 October 2026, 10am to 3.30pm, Conference Centre, Queen Margaret University, Musselburgh, Edinburgh.
Getting a product from first recipe to finished shelf stable product takes more than a good idea. Recipes that work perfectly in a development kitchen behave differently once heat, pressure and time are involved, and the questions arrive all at once. Which process suits the product, which ingredients hold up under it, which pack protects the shelf life you have worked to prove, and whether the finished product still tastes the way it did on day one.
The Food Incubator and The Scottish Centre for Food Development and Innovation at Queen Margaret University are hosting Idea to Aisle on Thursday 8 October in Edinburgh, a single day that puts the specialists who can answer those questions in the same room. The programme covers NPD, ingredients, thermal processing, packaging and scale up, and it is built around the products themselves rather than around compliance for its own sake. Stable, scalable and shelf ready, without losing the taste and quality that make a product worth selling.
The Food Incubator team will be leading sessions on thermal process establishment and process validation, joined by Catriona Liddle, Head of the Scottish Centre for Food Development and Innovation at QMU, Alex Batty and Abi Sharp from clean label specialists Ulrick + Short, along with KM Packaging and thermal processing specialists Holmach Ltd.
Who should come along
Idea to Aisle suits anyone developing food and drink products, from dedicated NPD and technical teams to founders doing a bit of everything. Established brands reformulating a product will get as much from the day as newer businesses scaling up for the first time, because the fundamentals are the same either way. Heat, ingredients, packaging and process control decide whether a product survives its shelf life with its quality intact.
The room is worth as much as the talks
Conversations between sessions are where a lot of the value sits. Idea to Aisle is a chance to spend the day with the specialists, suppliers and fellow manufacturers who can help take your product to the next level, so come with questions and leave with contacts. Lunch runs for well over an hour, which is long enough for a proper conversation rather than a rushed hello.
Tickets and the charity behind them
Tickets are £25 including lunch, with every penny going to The Country Food Trust, a charity producing high protein meals for food banks and community kitchens across the UK. The Trust has delivered well over a million meals, all of them made in retort pouches with a year of ambient shelf life, which makes it a fitting cause for a day spent on shelf stable food.
Places are limited, so book now. Book your ticket for Idea to Aisle on Eventbrite.