About Hethel Innovation

Hethel Innovation is a business support organisation with a mission to make the difference by providing space to grow, business insight, and connected communities. Our purpose is to create economic growth for our local region and our vision is to be the driving force for SME innovation.

They provide space to grow to businesses in the form of flexible tenancy at their innovation sites: Hethel Engineering Centre, Scottow Enterprise Park and Broadland Food Innovation Centre.

Supporting organisations to innovate is driven though their consultancy offer, providing insight and advice that creates business growth, commercialisation opportunities and spaces for future innovation.

Hethel Innovation brings together the skills, resources and ideas from their communities to work towards common goals, creating opportunities for collaboration and shared success.

Hethel Engineering Centre

Hethel Engineering Centre is an award-winning innovation hub and business centre in Norfolk serving the high-performance engineering and manufacturing sector in the East of England. Providing office, workshop and hot-desking space, the HEC has resulted in successful growth, not just for their own organisation, but for over 200 innovative businesses and 180 start-ups since opening in 2006.

The HEC acts as a hub for engineering and business in the region. The success of HEC has resulted in dozens of extra workshops and offices created to service the demand for such spaces from businesses across Norfolk and the rest of the UK. Hear from previous CEO, Alice Reeve and the businesses they support through the Hethel Engineering Centre in the below video. 

Browse the website here.

Scottow Enterprise Park

Scottow Enterprise Park is a leading Norfolk business park in the village of Badersfield, UK. This 600-acre site is based on the former RAD Coltishall and is the largest business park in North Norfolk. Home to over 110 members across 600 acres of space. The site offers commercial offices, workshop space and storage facilities to a thriving business community.

Browse the website here.

Broadland Food Innovation Centre (BFIC)

The Broadland Food Innovation Centre, managed by Hethel Innovation, opened in September 2022 and provides a home for food and drink SME’s and start-ups requiring food grade premises to accelerate their growth plans. It offers the optimum environment for innovation and growth, combining bespoke facilities, specialist support, cluster membership and a community of like-minded businesses on the Food Enterprise Park near Norwich.

Since 2021, the University of East Anglia (UEA) has been building a growing Food and Drink Innovation Cluster in Norfolk and Suffolk. It connects food and drink producers, suppliers and researchers and promotes knowledge exchange, collaboration, and innovation.

The cluster is part of a wider project, working with Hethel Innovation who have developed an Innovation Support Programme and is now home to over 550 members.

Browse the website here.