Miami Foods

True to their word, Kene Partners saved us significant money on claims, including on previous submissions. This has built our trust in using them going forward for all of our future R&D claims.

Who was the client?

Miami Foods (previously Miami Burger) consists of an exciting range of plant-based meat alternatives. What sets them apart is their use of beans, grains and veggies to produce realistic meat substitutes that are suitable for vegans. Their range of burgers, sausages, bacon, nuggets and meatballs are served in leading restaurants across the UK, as well as being stocked in supermarket chains such as Ocado and Asda.

“We are professional health hackers – taking your favourite foods and redesigning them in a way that radically lowers the saturated fats and crazy-high calories, but keeping the amazing taste.”

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What was the challenge?

The R&D tax legislation is complex and requires full understanding to ensure no qualifying expenditure is missed and claims are robust. Whilst Miami Foods were claiming R&D tax credits through another provider, they were missing out on key qualifying expenditure, resulting in a lower benefit than what they were entitled to. Lower claims in this sector usually result from a lack of knowledge of R&D tax credits and not recognising the type of work that happens within the food and beverage industry that qualifies under the government scheme. This is why we typically improve 80% of the claims we review.

“We were already working with another R&D tax company to produce our R&D tax claims at the time, but upon re-examining a previous submissions, Kene Partners were confident they could pull together a more maximized and robust R&D claim resulting in a higher benefit.”

HMRC do not receive many claims from this sector. We’re pleased to see a gradual increase over the years, from brewery manufacturers to upscale restaurants, helping reward more innovation in food and beverage.

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Identifying the R&D

The main drivers of R&D from Miami Foods were related to the development of meat-free alternatives to supply to restaurants and supermarket chains. The uncertainties encountered arose from mimicking the taste, texture and aesthetic of existing meat-based products, whilst only using plant-based ingredients and minimising saturated fat content to ensure the products were healthy.

Our R&D tax advisers worked with Miami Foods remotely to understand the challenges they faced across a number of new product development projects. This included detailed technical discussions and application of the R&D legislation to assess the level of R&D encountered, plus identification of eligible expenditure. From this, we put together a robust report that was submitted to HMRC alongside the enhanced and updated R&D claim.

The Result

Following the trend of many food businesses we have worked with over the last few years, we were pleased to produce a robust claim for Miami Foods that accurately rewarded their investment in innovation.

After reviewing and resubmitting previous claims (done by another provider) from the last two years, we were able to increase the benefit Miami Foods received by 119% and 369% respectively. We look forward to seeing future innovations from the team!

“True to their word, Kene Partners saved us significant money on claims, including on previous submissions. This has built our trust in using them going forward for all of our future R&D claims”