A celebration of Scotland’s excellent larder to take place from 3-18 September 2016
From venison, world class seafood, whisky, gin to the best blueberries to come out of the UK, Scotland Food & Drink project manager Fiona Richmond tells Eatnorth.co.uk all about Scottish Food & Drink Fortnight.
What is it?
SCOTTISH Food & Drink Fortnight is the annual celebration of Scotland’s fantastic produce. The fortnight is run by an industry-led, commercially-focused membership organisation that aims to grow the value of the country’s food and drink sector to £16.5bn by 2017 – and build Scotland’s international reputation as a ‘Land of Food and Drink.’ The Fortnight is funded by the Scottish Government.
The nationwide event aims to promote Scotland’s produce and the people who grow, make, cook and sell it. This year’s celebrations focus on primary producers, namely Scotland’s farmers and fisherman.
What’s so special about it this year?
The celebration takes place during the Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design, providing a great opportunity to showcase the strengths of the industry such as talented producers who combine tradition with innovation.
Innovative Scottish products include healthy seaweed seasonings to the production of courgetti and cauliflower rice.
What are the highlights?
The focus of this year’s celebration is our primary producer ‘food heroes’ – the farmers and fishermen whose hard work is the foundation of our Land of Food and Drink.
“They are the backbone of the sector, growing, rearing, harvesting and catching top quality raw ingredients for suppliers to produce their goods; delivered to chefs to create beautiful dishes and for consumers to enjoy the finished product.”
They are integral to the continued success of our £14.3bn Scottish food and drink industry which boasts iconic world-class products including Scotch Beef, Lamb and whisky along with global brands and dedicated producers.
What has Scotland got to offer?
Scotland’s fantastic larder of naturally healthy produce offers strong provenance across seafood, beef, lamb, venison, diary, whisky, confectionery, soft fruits and oat based products. Impressively, 75% of Scotland’s land mass is under agricultural production while 65,000 people are directly employed in agriculture (NFUS).
The Scottish seafood industry consists of 2,000 boats and 5,000 fisherman (SDI) in addition the worldwide retail value of Scottish farmed salmon is more than £1bn (SSPO).
What else is happening?
There will be more than 200 events across the country. Our supporters and participants include supermarkets, independent retailers, farm shops, visitor attractions, food festivals and restaurants so it’s easy to sample produce and learn more about our Scottish food and drink heroes.
Taste The Wild will be raising awareness of the natural food larder at the West Highland Food Festival, (10 September). Other events include dozens of Farmers’ Markets across the country, Loch Lomond Food & Drink Festival (3-4 September) Best of the West Festival (10-11 September) Great Perthshire Picnic (throughout September), Living Food at Cawdor (17-18 September) and Let’s Eat Glasgow (3 – 4 September).
And for the hospitality Industry?
Scotland Food & Drink works closely with contacts across the hospitality industry all year and the Fortnight gives the sector an opportunity to showcase their Scottish suppliers, as well as seek out potential new listings to add to their offering.
For more information visit the Scottish Food & Drink Fortnight website: http://fooddrinkfort.scot
follow @scotfoodfort and engage with the discussion using #scotfoodfort.
