A NEW brand will be launched to champion Scotland’s food and drink across the world as part of efforts to help the industry recover from Brexit and Covid, the SNP have pledged.
The “Sustainably Scottish” brand will be available to all producers, manufacturers and suppliers that can meet standards on provenance and low carbon operations.
Plans also include the setting up of a Scottish Food Agency to promote food, drink and horticulture and improve supply chains and infrastructure.
And a new £15 million fund will be established to help food processing and manufacturing to develop local supply chains and transition to low or zero carbon operations.
Another key pledge is to promote a local food strategy to cut food miles and increasing efforts to promote Scottish products across Europe.
The plan comes after figures revealed the damage Brexit has caused to the country’s food and drink exporters.
READ MORE: Search is on for 25 Scots to become national food and drink ambassadors
The SNP said they would use £1.5m of additional funding from the newly devolved red meat levy to support Scotch beef, lamb and pork to become the first “Sustainably Scottish” products.
SNP candidate for Perthshire South and Kinross-shire Jim Fairlie, a former hill farmer, said: “The SNP recognises that food and drink is one of the jewels in Scotland’s economic crown – as well as a huge part of Scotland’s past, present and future – and we will do more to harness that and support its sustainable growth in the future.
“A key part of our plans to do this will be to create a single marketing brand known as ‘Sustainably Scottish’, which will not only promote Scotland’s food and drink in Scotland and across the world but will help to ensure more of our food is produced sustainably.
“The SNP in government already committed to investing £5m to support Scotland’s food and drink industry to recover from the impact of Covid, secured £1.5m to promote Scotland’s quality red meat, and increased the number of councils participating in the Food for Life programme which provides fresh, local healthy produce for school meals – but we want to go further.”
Fairlie also pointed to concerns over the protection of food and drink standards in the UK following Brexit, with warnings free trade deals with countries with lower standards could have an impact.
The Tories have refused to enshrine requirements for imports to meet UK domestic standards into law.
He added: “The Tories have shown they cannot be trusted with Scotland’s crucial food and drink as they race to the bottom on food standards and sit on their hands over fixing the trade barriers hampering our exports.
“It is only by voting SNP on May 6 that we can truly protect the sector and put Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands – not Boris Johnson’s or the rest of the Tories who are threatening our standards.”
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), UK fish and shellfish exports to the EU – Scotland’s largest food export category – slumped by 83% in January.
The meat and dairy sectors also reported a fall in EU exports of 59% and 50% respectively.
Responding to these figures, James Withers, pictured, chief executive of Scotland Food and Drink, rejected claims the slump was due to Covid.
He said: “There is no sugar-coating these statistics, they are grim. We know Covid has reduced demand and there was stockpiling of products before the end of the year, however, right at the heart of this trade collapse is Brexit and the creation of huge, new, non-tariff trade barriers with our biggest export market.
“This simply can’t be talked away as a Covid issue.”
Latest figures show trade between the UK and EU partially recovered in February, but exports are still below last year’s level. HMRC figures show food and drink exports to the EU were down by 26% in February, compared with the same month last year.
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