Date :
25/03/2015
Scottish food is on the menu this year as The Year of Food and Drink 2015 aims to engage with industry leaders and SMEs to showcase and celebrate Scottish produce. Monthly themes have been developed to help inspire you in your events and activities.
In the run up to The Scotland Food & Drink Excellence Awards in May, April’s theme focuses on the country’s award-winning food.
Find your category
Every year, the very best of Scottish food and drink is recognised and rewarded in The Scotland Food and Drink Excellence Awards, brought to you by a partnership between Scotland Food & Drink and the Royal Highland and Agriculture Society of Scotland.
A broad range of categories across retail, foodservice and business mean that there’s an award opportunity for almost everyone. This year’s categories included, amongst many: Young Talent, Scottish Sourcing, Commitment to Health and Brand Success of the Year.
To celebrate the Year of Food and Drink 2015, an exciting new Food Hero category has also been introduced to allow the public to nominate a person or business who they think has made the biggest impact on the contemporary Scottish food scene.
How you could benefit
The Food and Drink Excellence Awards provides companies with excellent opportunities to promote themselves and their products, as well as giving staff a real morale boost.
Winners can get advice on how to get the most out of the award on the Scotland Food and Drink website.
But it’s not just the winners who benefit from the Awards. While the hope for applicants is to win one of the nineteen categories, shortlisted entrants also find the exposure the competition brings of great value.
Andrew Ramsay, Director of Ramsay of Carluke who won an award in 2007, explains: “The awards get a huge amount of coverage in the trade press but they also carry considerable prestige as far as the big retailers and catering companies are concerned, so all shortlisted entrants – even if you don’t win on the night – find themselves under scrutiny from these major industry players. That’s something you can’t buy.”
Third generation Haggis Company Macsween also noted the benefits of the Award: “It is definitely worth entering the Excellence Awards” says Macsween, “it is a key industry night out which allows valuable networking between sectors.”
Fruitful opportunities
This year’s Scotland Food & Drink Excellence Awards closed for entries on Friday 27 February, but don’t worry if you missed out this time – it’ll be back and open for entries in early 2016.
In the meantime, the Year of Food and Drink 2015 could help you to reach out to the 49% of visitors to Scotland who want to try local food, and attract the two-thirds of tourists who believe that quality food is an important factor when deciding where to go on holiday.
Take a look at the Year of Food & Drink Toolkit for marketing tips and use the monthly themes to inspire you. There’s also still time to make an initial expression of interest for the quarterly Food and Drink Growth Fund (next deadline: 22 May 2015).
The Year of Food and Drink
Year of Food and Drink Toolkit
Food and Drink Growth Fund
Taste Our Best Accreditation
Tourism Intelligence Guide to Food and Drink
Scotland Food and Drink
Follow VisitScotland on Twitter and use the hashtag #TasteScotland to join the conversation.