- Cotswolds gourmet foods business becomes the first to use the agency’s SME-focused export insurance product
A Gloucestershire food business has successfully broken into Southeast Asian markets in the first iteration of a new UK Export Finance (UKEF) facility that helps small exporters.
Cotswolds company TruffleHunter, which produces truffle-based products and gourmet ingredients, used UKEF’s ‘Small Exporter Builder’ (SEB) facility to secure contracts worth £22,500 in Malaysia and the Philippines – with further orders lined up in Thailand, Ecuador and Mexico.
The speciality foods business was the first to make use of the SEB programme, a government-backed export insurance product designed to help SMEs build confidence in new markets by starting with smaller contracts and then growing cover in line with their success.
TruffleHunter says the deals – including orders worth £7,500 in Malaysia and £15,000 in the Philippines – “would not have been possible through traditional commercial insurers”, which typically focus on big transactions and would not offer cover for smaller value exports.
UKEF’s SEB allows businesses to start with a credit limit of up to £25,000 and build up to £100,000 in 50% increments, as they build a solid trading history with their buyers.
“The Small Export Builder has been a game-changer for our business,” says TruffleHunter CEO, Nigel Whitehouse. “The inability to secure commercial insurance for smaller value orders was a real barrier to access new markets for us like Malaysia and the Philippines.
“UKEF’s support has given us the confidence to diversify our export base, enter new territories and build relationships with buyers we simply couldn’t have worked with before.”
Hugh Francis, UKEF’s export finance manager for Gloucestershire, adds that TruffleHunter’s success shows the importance of helping SMEs “access markets that commercial insurers won’t cover”.
“The beauty of this facility is that it grows with the business, allowing them to build confidence and trading relationships incrementally,” Francis says.
Announced this June, the SEB is part of UKEF’s enhanced business support – in line with the government’s trade strategy, which focuses on boosting British exports in the next decade – and was designed to make export protection more accessible to smaller companies seeking financial security when trading internationally.
The facility’s announcement also came amid criticism that the UK’s export credit agency did not give SMEs enough support.
The insurance product was developed after the government pledged to inject an extra £20bn of capacity into the export credit agency, bringing UKEF’s total lending and guarantee limit to £80bn.
According to UKEF’s annual report and accounts for 2024/25, the agency provided a record £14.5bn in new financing, helping over 667 UK companies to export and grow.
