THE Vale's importance to the West Midlands' food and drink industry was underlined last Friday with the opening of a centre of excellence at Pershore College.

Core Food and Drink, a division of the Pershore Group of Colleges, hopes the centre of excellence will soon become a regional base for small to medium sized producers.

The head of Core Food and Drink, Peter Mitchell, said the centre would provide producers of specialist foods and drinks with research and development facilities, training, and access to the latest equipment.

"We will have done our job if a small beer producer comes here and puts its beer in a bottle for the first time, gets that to the market and then goes on to buy its own equipment," said Mr Mitchell.

He said Core Food and Drink tried to serve the needs of the industry in innovative ways and added: "It is another innovative part of the college, training and education may well go in this direction."

Opened by Peter Carter, chairman of Worcestershire County Council, the £1million purpose-built centre has been developed with more than £650,000 from Advantage West Midlands (AWM), the regional development agency for skills and development funding.

The agency identified the food and drink industry as one of those likely to boost the area's economy over the long term.

Tony Harris, a board member of AWM, said the facility was necessary to make producers in the Vale and region as a whole more competitive.

"It's ideally located in an area known for its food production," he added.

The centre's backers are hopeful its impact will be felt beyond the West Midlands as it also includes a national centre for the cider industry.

Jonathan Blair of Hereford cider maker HP Bulmers gave the centre the thumbs up and said it would offer the industry a range useful research and training services.