THOUSANDS of pounds has been allocated to four Richmondshire businesses via a scheme to help take advantage of regional supply chains.

Mocha Chocolate Shop Ltd, The Bezaak Group Ltd, Yorkshire Dales Meat Company and The Gluten Free Kitchen all received a share of over £14,000 from the Supply Chain Network Project.

The Project, funded through The European Regional Development Fund, enabled the businesses to buy equipment to help increase production and to make them more competitive in a commercial marketplace.

The Gluten Free Kitchen, a manufacturer of gluten free products based in Leyburn, purchased new equipment to help them increase their pastry production in order to fulfil their orders for national supermarkets.

The Gluten Free Kitchen, a manufacturer of gluten free products based in Leyburn, purchased new equipment to help them increase their pastry production in order to fulfil their orders for national supermarkets.

Owner Sue Fleming said: “With online sales growing exponentially for both us and the supermarkets we currently supply, we needed to keep pace with manufacturing and supplying in a timely manner to satisfy demand.

“The funding provided through the supply chain network enabled us to purchase a new 60L mixer to increase our pastry production which will substantially help our future development.”

Meanwhile, The Yorkshire Dales Meat Company, a family-run catering butchers based in Patrick Brompton, used the funding to develop software to enable their stock control and ordering systems to become integrated.

James Knox, director, said: “The supply chain network has helped Yorkshire Dales Meat to work more efficiently in an extremely difficult economic environment.

"With this innovation we have improved our ordering process which in turn gives us more capacity to supply a greater number of customers. Our order turnaround speed is critical and now this has been reduced we can look forward to taking on new customers.”