Local Food for Everyone: Our Journey

Section 3 - Scottish Government and Partner Activity

In the next pages we will set out a range of activities already underway or planned.

Pillar One: Connecting people with local food

We want to connect people with their food as this can help us achieve a healthier population, and when people eat food that has not travelled far it helps to mitigate its climate impact.

Making land available for growing

The Scottish Government is helping communities access land for food growing purposes through:

• The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, which places a number of duties on local authorities in relation to allotments, including the requirement to prepare a Food Growing Strategy. The Scottish Government is working with local authorities to support the implementation of the Act and the development of Food Growing Strategies;
• National Planning Framework 4, which is clear that local development plans should include opportunities for community food growing and allotments. The policy supports development proposals that will have positive effects on health which could include opportunity for community food growing or allotments;
• Tools that support the identification and delivery of food growing opportunities; these include the Place Standard Tool, with a climate lens which covers discussion prompts on local food and community growing.

Grow Your Own

The Scottish Government are also committed to support community growing projects at grassroots level.

Over the last 11 years, over £1.2 million has been awarded to Green Action Trust to support community growing organisations. The ‘Growing Food Together’ grant provides funds to help establish growing sites, particularly in areas of social deprivation, actively increasing the land available for community food growing. The grant helps to improve food growing skills, empowering communities and individuals to grow their own food in their local area.

In addition to this, since 2016, around £580,000 has been allocated to various community growing organisations in Scotland, helping to maximise local growing opportunities out with the traditional setting of allotments.

The Scottish Government provides funding to:

• Trellis Scotland who deliver the ‘Growing Good Health’ project which will enable more people to improve their health and wellbeing through ‘Grow Your Own’ initiatives, as well as helping to improve the support and resources offered in a range of care settings. This will help to increase the area of land under cultivation and support more individuals and communities to gain the necessary skills and knowledge to grow their own food;
• Social Farms and Gardens, which represents over 300 organisations, works directly with grassroots community groups across Scotland to deliver actions to increase the land available for community food growing. This project also aims to empower and support organisations and individuals to grow food within their local community;
• GrowGreen Scotland, who support communities and people to participate in growing food and taking care of nature in their local area, deliver a community growing advisory service, manage and update the Get Growing Scotland online portal and coordinate the Community Growing Forum Scotland;
• Rural communities (Community Led Local Development) programme to trial new, streamlined approaches to delivering community led projects and to revitalise the structure of the volunteer LEADER Local Action Group network. In 2022-23 we invested £11.6 million in Community Led Local Development, including £8.6 million via the LEADER Local Action Group network and £3 million via a single external delivery partner (Inspiring Scotland). Over 380 community-led projects have been funded across rural Scotland in 2022-23 which are delivering local actions towards our national net zero and just transition goals, helping communities to address rural poverty and supporting economic growth and Covid recovery.

Learning about food

The Scottish Government encourages learning about food through making food education an integral part of the national educational curriculum, meaning that all schools are expected to deliver on this subject in line with the experiences and outcomes detailed in Curriculum for Excellence. The food and health experiences and outcomes are designed to ensure children and young people are taught about food in its widest sense and to understand the impact their choices have on their health and wellbeing, the environment and the economy. This learning includes exploring where food comes from and career opportunities in the food and farming industry.

To support this, the Scottish Government has provided funding for a number of years to both Education Scotland and the Royal Highland Education Trust (RHET), as follows:

• Education Scotland have received £307,000 in funding for 2023-24 to distribute grants as part of the Food for Thought fund. Now in its 10^th year, educational settings were able to apply for grants of up to £3000 for projects which contribute to achieving Good Food Nation outcomes;
• RHET receive funding for the delivery of in-person farm visits and event days for school children, with accompanying digital classroom resources. This year will see RHET provide some form of rural/farm experience for up to 80,000 school pupils across Scotland.

Improving access to food

The Scottish Government seeks to improve access to locally produced food through:

• Allocating almost £3 billion in 2023-24 to support policies which tackle poverty and protect people, as far as possible, during the ongoing cost of living crisis. This follows on from the £3 billion invested to support low income households during the previous financial year. Maximising income and reducing the cost of living enables households to better access food that meets their needs and preferences. Our prioritisation of cash-first responses to financial hardship helps to boost income and prevent future crises;
• Over £140 million that was invested in tackling food insecurity during the pandemic, as well as partnership working at pace between different sectors and services, ensured that people were able to access food and other essentials. We continue to work with local partners to build on these relationships and support action that boosts household income alongside help to access food where needed;
• Supporting Public Health Scotland to run Community Food and Health (Scotland) which provides capacity building, resource and evaluation support to local initiatives. Their aim is to ensure that everyone in Scotland has the opportunity, ability and confidence to access a healthy and acceptable diet for themselves, their families and their communities. This work can include local growing initiatives and agreements with local producers;
• Our commitment to supporting the health and wellbeing of our children and young people by ensuring they can access balanced and nutritious food, drink and meals as part of their school day, including free school meals and school milk provision. This is further reinforced in our 2023 Programme for Government stating that “we remain committed to ensuring that school meals meet the highest standards of nutrition, recognising that this is vital to our children’s effective learning”;
• All local authorities are under a statutory duty to consider the principles of sustainable development when providing food or drink, or catering services in schools. Local authorities, supported by Scotland Excel, remain committed to using local and sustainable produce in school catering wherever possible. For example, 100% of milk and fresh bread and rolls core spend procured through the Scotland Excel framework is produced or manufactured in Scotland (as at June 2023);
• The Scottish Milk and Healthy Snack Scheme (SMHSS) that was launched in August 2021 and linked to our 2021-22 Programme for Government. It is a universal, demand-led policy open to all pre-school children in receipt of two or more hours of regulated childcare that provides a daily portion of milk or non-dairy alternative (NDA) and a healthy snack of fresh fruit or vegetables. Scottish Ministers provide funding to local authorities who administer the scheme and provide payments to participating childcare settings. This supports actions to deliver our national mission to tackle poverty, as set out in the Programme for Government 2023-24, by removing the cost of the milk, NDAs and healthy snacks from parent’s pockets and promoting positive health outcomes for children through improved nutrition, thus embedding healthy eating habits from an early age. It also supports our ambitions to reduce childhood obesity and increase fruit and vegetable consumption amongst children through early education and awareness of the nutritious value of milk/NDAs and healthy snacks. The SMHSS is unique compared to the rest of the UK because, unlike other UK administrations’ schemes, it is the only scheme that offers children a healthy snack and an alternative for children who cannot drink cow’s, goat’s or sheep’s milk for medical, ethical or religious reasons. The SMHSS encourages the use of locally sourced food and drink as part of our ambition to improve access to, and understanding the benefits of, healthy local foods.

The Scottish Government provides funding through:

• Four community food networks (£100,000) (Lanarkshire Community Food & Health Partnership, Glasgow Community Food Network, Community Food Initiatives North East and Edinburgh Community Food). Their activities increase access to affordable, healthy food for members of their local communities. This will include community growing and agreements with local producers;
• The Investing in Communities Fund, which commenced a second round of multi-year grants from 1 April 2023 and will provide three years of support until 2025-26. Awards have been made to 105 community-based organisations delivering activities that tackle locally identified challenges related to poverty, inequality and disadvantage. Many of the supported projects have an element of delivery that is food-related, including cooking healthy meals on a budget, growing projects and combating the food crisis through food pantries and larders.

The community funds above are designed to identify and address local issues associated with poverty and disadvantage while supporting a range of community goals including local economy, local production, environment and climate objectives. These funds are community-led, recognising that communities themselves know best what they need, to address their local challenges and identify local solutions.

Maxwell Centre

An example of a community-led initiative which is working to improve access to locally grown food is The Maxwell Centre and Garden. The Maxwell has been at the heart of the Coldside area in Dundee for over 15 years. This thriving project has an average monthly footfall of over 2,400 each month. The well-established garden provides the whole community with the skills and confidence to grow food, and the equipment and resources to do so. It also allows food and locally grown produce to be central to the way the project successfully connects with so many people. They provide access to fresh garden produce via harvest boxes, ‘harvest your own’ sessions, cooking workshops, a community cupboard and shared lunches with staff, volunteers and project participants. It allows a broad spectrum of people of all ages, genders, ethnicities, religions etc. in the area to come together and breaks down barriers in an environment that promotes interaction and integration, and empowers them to improve their lives and the place they live in.

Since 2019, the Scottish Government has provided £203,000 of funding to the Maxwell Centre via the Investing in Community Fund, with a further £244,000 funding to be issued over the next three years.

Tourism

We established the tourism and hospitality Industry Leadership Group (ILG) to work with industry, public agencies and the Scottish Government, to help drive recovery and sustainable growth in the long-term. The ILG will champion the national tourism strategy, Scotland Outlook 2030, a key component of National Strategy for Economic Transformation.

The industry-led Food Tourism Scotland Action Plan was launched in 2018 to maximise the potential of two of Scotland’s most successful sectors – tourism, and food and drink. The plan has been developed by Scotland Food & Drink and Scottish Tourism Alliance and supported by the Scottish Government, Visit Scotland and other partners. A number of actions are currently underway, including:

• The creation of a National Food Charter
• Communications plan
• Experience development framework
• Online resource to aid food tourism and business support

The Scotland Food & Drink Regional Food Tourism Ambassadors programme (September 2021-23) delivered a series of projects from 22 regional food tourism ambassadors to raise Scotland’s profile as a global food tourism destination. Funding was awarded for the delivery of local projects such as creating experience tours, local produce directories, food trails, skills campaigns and podcasts. Given the successful pilot, further ambassador programmes are being considered.

Pillar Two: Connecting Scottish producers with buyers

We want to support Scottish producers to connect with buyers in creating shorter supply chains and establishing efficient distribution networks, to help manage the spread of food production across Scotland.

Launched in July 2023, The Scotland Food & Drink Partnership Industry Strategy Sustaining Scotland. Supplying The World builds on the previous industry-led Recovery Plan and earlier strategy - Ambition 2030. Brexit, Covid and the conflict in Ukraine have changed the landscape considerably since, and the industry needs to recover and rebuild from the resulting disruption and economic shocks. Many of the same market opportunities remain - Scotland’s food and drink sector is still ideally placed to realise those opportunities.

The new strategy will help the sector to fulfil its ambition and outlines a bold industry-led plan which seeks to address the issues that have hindered growth, while helping the industry grasp the market opportunities that remain out there. The strategy is broader in scope than Ambition 2030 and the subsequent Recovery Plan, but remains ambitious in setting out the challenges and how the industry wants to react and make the most of those opportunities. Specifically, through the strategy delivery plan, there are a number of actions to help connect Scottish producers with buyers to increase purchases of local food and drink which will be led by Scotland Food & Drink:

• Support 19 Regional Food Groups so they can help local producers promote their products and region to visitors, local consumers, and beyond;
• Reviewing the national approach to supporting regional and local producers and retailers;
• Progress key areas of the Food Tourism Action Plan, including investigating the potential development of a National Food Charter which encourages venues and tourist attractions to source more local products;
• Placing graduates into the buying teams of retail and food service businesses to develop the trading capabilities of suppliers to gain new listings;
• Delivering a series of ‘meet-the-buyer’ trade events under the Sourcing Scotland brand to showcase Scottish suppliers and facilitate new listings;
• Develop new sector branding, brand guidelines and a full toolkit of assets, and make sure the branding is applied consistently across domestic markets.

Foster short and circular supply chains

In order to foster short and circular supply chains:

• The Scottish Government developed and published the Retail Strategy for Scotland in March 2022 to support the sector through to the following five years and beyond. This will link in with work across government to support local businesses and suppliers;
• The Scottish Government is exploring the opportunities offered by vertical farming, including offering a grant to Scotland’s Rural College to support the development of a vertical farm at their Edinburgh campus. As we look to produce more food locally, vertical farming could help Scotland grow more of its own fruit and vegetables;
• Co-operative Development Scotland (CDS), on behalf of Scotland’s enterprise agencies (Scottish Enterprise, Highlands & Islands Enterprise and South of Scotland Enterprise), supports local food production by supporting companies and community groups across Scotland that want to adopt employee ownership or a co-operative business model. CDS helps the sector grow by offering a range of advice and services, including free masterclasses and one-to-one support. CDS also raises awareness of the benefits of employee ownership and co-operatives through events and the media;
• The Scottish Agricultural Association Society Ltd (SAOS) are Scotland’s experts on farmer co-ops and food industry collaboration and provide a range of specialist information and development services to help businesses work together more effectively;
• Community Wealth Building economic development actions can support the development of local supply chains through the spending pillar, by encouraging local anchor organisations to engage with local suppliers as part of their procurement process.

Support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)

Over the last six years, the Scottish Government has provided over £500,000 to Food and Drink Federation (FDF) Scotland to deliver the Reformulation for Health Programme.

• The reformulation team support Scottish SMEs manufacturers to adapt their existing recipes to increase the health properties of their products;
• The programme is contributing to improving our dietary health by removing hundreds of millions of calories from the Scottish diet;
• Earlier this year, Food Standards Scotland provided £50,000 to FDF Scotland to provide a Healthier Bakery Fund. Thirteen bakery businesses have won funding through the Fund to support reformulation projects.

Encourage retailers to stock Scottish food

Retailers are encouraged to stock Scottish food through:

• Frequent ministerial-level engagement with major retailers to encourage them to source and promote Scottish produce in their stores;
• Facilitation of new regional showcase trade events to bring together more suppliers and buyers to drive local sales.

The Scottish Government provides additional support through a range of measures:

• Providing over £700,000 funding to the Scottish Grocers Federation’s ‘Go Local’ programme since 2020, to transform Scotland’s convenience store sector to maximise local promotion and purchase of fresh, healthy Scottish produce;
• Creation of new posts in major UK retailers’ buying teams and food service companies, to broker more sourcing of Scottish produce with graduates, hosted in partnership with Scotland Food & Drink;
• Supporting SMEs via Scotland Food & Drink to obtain Safe and Local Supplier Accreditation or British Retail Consortium food safety accreditation, to help them access more markets;
• Delivering a programme in partnership with key retailers and food service customers to increase listings of Scottish products in Scottish outlets. This is led by Scotland Food & Drink who are working closely with major retailers and food service companies.

Encourage consumers to buy Scottish food

Consumers are encouraged to buy Scottish food through:

• The annual Scottish Food & Drink Fortnight campaign co-ordinated by Scotland Food & Drink showcases and highlights the strength of the local food and drink offering;
• Supporting producers to obtain Geographical Indication (GI) status for their products, offering them protection from imitation as well as market differentiation in the UK, and abroad. This is accompanied by promotion activity for GI products, that included the Quality Meat Scotland ‘Make it Scotch’ campaign.

The Scottish Government provides funding to:

• Support Scottish agritourism to ensure a long-term sustainable future that delivers a high-quality, authentic visitor experience with agriculture, and food and drink at its core. A growing and thriving sector encourages more farms to add value to their businesses through agritourism. That will then give visitors and locals alike more opportunities to learn about, and appreciate, local food production. We are providing £443,000 to Scottish Enterprise to establish a new Agritourism Monitor Farm Programme over the 2023-24 and 2024-25 period. In addition, we have provided £35,000 to Scottish Agritourism to deliver activities like Regional Agritourism Roadshows, engaging with Local Authorities and developing bookable online experiences involving food and drink;
• Support Scotland’s Town Partnership to deliver the ‘Scotland Loves Local’ programme, including the ‘Scotland Loves Local’ Gift Card, which remains a major opportunity to support local economies. Effectively creating a local currency, it provides a means for companies and individuals to reward and incentivise in a way that ensures that the value of that spending stays local and recirculates round the local economy;
• The Regional Food Fund, which provides grants of up to £5,000 per application to a variety of projects promoting local food. The most recent funding round completed in January 2024 means that, over 2018-24, the fund has now received over £750,000, benefitting more than 160 creative, innovative and collaborative local food and drink projects across the regions of Scotland;
• Joint Scotland Food & Drink/Local Authority posts to support regional food groups. These groups champion their area’s food and drink sector. From Shetland and Orkney to East Lothian; Angus and Fife to Ayrshire and Arran, and the Outer Hebrides; the current network of 19 groups work to help grow their local businesses, develop their regional identities, drive spend on local food and develop food tourism;
• Following the closure of the Small Farm Grants Scheme, the Small Producer Pilot Fund (SPPF) started in December 2023 and will bring a range of business, community, sectoral and climate change benefits for small producers across Scotland. The key outcomes of the pilot have been developed in partnership with the industry-led Small Producers Pilot Steering Group. The pilot will offer training and supply chain solutions and opportunities as well as tackling frequent national barriers to small producer participation, including solutions to the issues highlighted in the SPPF survey on abattoirs. The fund will also contribute to the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss by supporting activities that encourage adaptive and sustainable, regenerative, climate and environmentally friendly practices. The pilot aims to lead to more adaptive activity by small producers to adjust to a changing climate and future sustainability, thus indirectly facilitating both a diverse, resilient, food and drink industry and the support of Scotland’s most remote rural communities, who are reliant on small producers.

Encourage use of Scottish products as inputs

The Scottish Government has provided funding:

• To facilitate a joint Scotland Food & Drink, Scottish Wholesale Association and SAOS supply chain study on logistics and fulfilment for small and micro businesses, to help educate both sides of the supply chain – wholesalers about benefits of sourcing Scottish and producers on how to sell into wholesale. Over 100 producers have already benefited from participation, learning how to best access and supply the local wholesale market;
• To the Scottish Wholesale Association to deliver a training programme to create up to 40 “Local Food Champions”, designed to help grow the share of locally sourced products listed and sold by Scotland’s wholesalers.

Pillar Three: Harnessing public sector procurement

We want to prioritise and harness the power of public sector procurement and encourage better access to it for local food producers.

Leverage public sector buying power to support Scottish producers

To encourage better access to public sector procurement for local food producers:

• The Scottish Government’s ‘Better Eating, Better Learning’ guidance provides a framework for sustainable food and drink for educational settings;
• Local authorities, supported by Scotland Excel, remain committed to using fresh, seasonal and sustainable produce in school catering wherever possible, as they have done for many years, recognising the wide-ranging benefits of doing so;
• The Scottish Government will use feedback gathered via this strategy consultation and engagement with local authorities and public sector procurement groups to inform an update of ‘Catering for Change: buying food sustainably in the public sector’, providing guidance for anyone involved in the procurement of food or catering services in the public sector.

The Scottish Government provides funding for:

• The Food for Life (FFL) Scotland programme, which now operates across 17 local authorities in Scotland, supporting the provision of more locally sourced, healthier food being served in schools. Food for Life accreditation ensures that at least 75% of school food is fresh and unprocessed, as well as greatly increasing the amount of fresh fruit (including berries) and vegetables, fish and wholegrains on the menu. In addition, any red meat served by accredited councils is high-quality and farm assured. A pilot programme within the Glasgow area is focusing on how the FFL Scotland approach can best be expanded into other areas of the public sector. It is now in its second year of operation and Baxter Storey have recently become the first non-local authority award-holder for their Scottish Government and Scottish Courts Service sites. In 2023-24 we will provide £490,000 of funding to target unaccredited councils, support those who are already accredited, and to continue the pilot programme. The programme also has the wider benefit of educating young people on food culture and the importance of health and nutrition, thus helping to improve health outcomes out with the school setting;
• The Supplier Development Programme, which delivers free training and guidance on how to submit and win public procurement bids. The Supplier Development Programme also delivers free ‘Meet the Buyer’ events to put suppliers in touch with public sector buyers to learn more about upcoming contracts, in addition to running early engagement activities with public bodies to inform suppliers and ensure they have adequate time to prepare for specific contracting opportunities. In 2023-24, we will provide up to £150,000 to support this programme of work.

Scotland Excel – an example of innovation in public procurement

Scotland Excel, the Centre of Procurement Expertise for the local government sector, play a pivotal role in public procurement through collaborative procurement frameworks.

Scotland Excel have worked hard to make sure public sector food contracts are as accessible as possible to Scottish businesses, including SMEs.

One example of innovation within public procurement was giving manufacturers in the frozen food sector the opportunity to bid to supply food only, without also having to distribute it and without having to enter into a second-tier contract through a distributor to supply through their framework. This created opportunities for smaller companies that didn’t have national delivery logistics in place and achieved competitive pricing for Scottish councils.

This was the first time in Scotland a collaborative frozen food contract for the public sector had taken the supply only approach, so it was a ground-breaking step for the national public food procurement landscape.

As a result of this approach, an Aberdeenshire-based fish supplier secured a place on the contract to supply Scottish haddock, which has created the potential for £1 million of new business for this small, family-owned company. This approach was so successful that they followed it for their groceries framework, resulting in five SMEs being awarded a place on the framework, and have implemented on a new generation frozen foods framework.

Leading by example – Scottish Government provision of catering services framework

The Scottish Government is demonstrating commitment to fresh, healthy and seasonal produce through our catering framework for staff canteens.

The Scottish Government awarded a new contract for our catering services in August 2022. The contract is for three years with the option for a further three one-year extensions.

Staff and visitors enjoy a menu cycle based on fresh seasonal produce; vegan options are also provided, with sandwiches, seasonal fruit, soups and hot vegan dishes served daily. Furthermore, bakery, dairy and meat products are provided by Scottish suppliers. We are working with the catering contractor to increase the Scottish supply base through initiatives such as ‘Meet the Buyer’ events.

A member of staff said: “I love that there are different seasonal options and plenty of delicious choices on offer. I can plan what I am going to eat by looking at the menu in advance and can think about nutrition and calories”.

Scottish Government has also demonstrated a commitment to reduction of waste in this framework. Food spoilage is recorded and a reduction in food waste has been seen since the contract commenced. Moreover, all takeaway containers and cutlery can be disposed of in food waste bins and are then turned into compost.