Scotland’s food and drink agenda announced

The immediate agenda for Scotland’s Food and Drink Champions Leadership Forum has been outlined by David Thomson, deputy director for food and drink in the Scottish government.

Following what Thomson called “a very effective” first meeting on August 20, he said the group was attempting to arrange a follow up meeting this month, with another scheduled for December. “The forum will meet again in September to think more clearly about what its vision for food and drink should be and work towards a shared perspective for all workshop chairs. In the next three months there should be a lot of progress on a number of things.”

Sub-groups within the forum have been set up to tackle environmental sustainability, health and wellbeing, sustainable economic growth, affordability and drinks related issues. These five workstreams will work through four keynote issues. They include how the industry will meet trade promotional body Scotland Food & Drink’s sales target of £10bn by 2017.

Other topics include how consumers can be helped to make environmental and sustainable choices about food and drink and how to further the reputation of the food and drink industry in Scotland. How to boost Scotland’s food and drink export market will also be addressed, as will how to improve public sector procurement in Scotland.

“Public sector procurement is a difficult thing,” said Thomson. “The sector is not an easy customer and we’re looking at how to make it easier and more accessible and sensitive to trade needs. At the moment a lot of people are turned off getting a contract because it is so inaccessible.”

Preliminary findings and results from the work of Scotland’s Food and Drink Champions Leadership Forum are expected to be unveiled on March 18 next year.