Local Food for Everyone: Our Journey

Section 1 - Introduction

Making the most of the fantastic food and drink produced in Scotland has always been at the heart of the Scottish Government’s food policies. We want everyone to have the opportunity to enjoy food and drink produced locally and for producers of all sizes to access the markets on their doorsteps. With this in mind, in 2021 we committed to publishing a Local Food Strategy. We published a consultation on the draft Local Food for Everyone in August 2021 to test and inform our approaches. The consultation focused on the three pillars of the Scottish Government’s draft Local Food Strategy: connecting people with local food, connecting Scottish producers with buyers and harnessing public sector procurement.

The responses to the consultation reinforced our view that local production has enormous potential to enrich lives, improve diets, reduce food miles and keep value in communities. We want to make sure we continue to learn from others, adopting good practice and removing barriers that are stopping people growing, using, choosing or buying Scottish food at every opportunity.

We have worked with the public, industry and other organisations to make sure our policies deliver for the communities we serve. The Scotland Food & Drink Partnership Industry Strategy, the Good Food Nation policy and the Vision for Agriculture, which will be enabled through the new Agriculture Bill, set out our aspirations for Scotland to be a Good Food Nation.

In 2014, we set out our ambition for Scotland to become a Good Food Nation: a nation where people from every walk of life take pride and pleasure in, and benefit from, the food they produce, buy, cook, serve and eat each day. The Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 is the next step on a journey to develop a more coherent and coordinated approach to food policy, through the publication of our first national Good Food Nation Plan. Local food can, and will, play an important part in this work.

Scotland has some of the best food and drink in the world, which is enjoyed around the globe and creates jobs across the country. Since 2007, the Scottish Government has dramatically improved the landscape for food in Scotland, from free school lunches to agricultural innovation.

The agricultural sector plays an important part in our lives, both culturally and in terms of nutrition. The Scottish Government firmly believe there is no contradiction between high-quality food production and producing it in a way that delivers for the climate and nature, and we are committed to transforming Scottish agriculture. This includes continuing to promote our positive vision for Scottish food production, one in which our world-class producers thrive and contribute to our world-leading climate change agenda, and respond to the biodiversity crisis by delivering sustainable regenerative agriculture.

The people of Scotland deserve to have access to the best produce Scotland has to offer - whether they’re growing it themselves, buying it directly from a local producer, choosing it at a convenience store or supermarket, being served it at school, or in any number of other settings.

A steering group was formed in December 2022 to drive forward, raise the profile of, and collaborate on the local food agenda. We recognise it cuts across many different areas of work and policy.

More and more people want to know where their food has come from: who made it, how our animals are cared for, how far it has travelled, and how it supports local jobs and investment. We believe that local food can offer a lot of the answers.

It was clear from the consultation results that ‘local’ food means different things to different people. We will define what we mean by local food in Section 4 - The Benefits of Local Food.

The pandemic, conflict in Ukraine and the cost crisis have accelerated the pace of change. These events have highlighted the complexity of our global supply chains for essential requirements like food and energy. They have also highlighted the domestic consequences of global events that are beyond our control. We know there is the possibility of increased risk in the future from factors like the impact of the climate and nature crises, and the likelihood of continued global supply chain shocks. Our food security and the role that locally produced food plays within that is something the Scottish Government takes very seriously, having recently established a new unit to monitor and take action on food security.

There are many benefits to encouraging greater consumption of Scottish food as part of a balanced food policy. We will never be in a position to produce the wide variety of food the nation currently enjoys, nor would we be wise to try to do so - countries that engage in trade gain significantly from doing so, and being reliant only on domestic production makes a country poorer and more exposed to risk (for example from failed harvests). In considering the future direction of Scottish food policy, we need to take into account areas of production where Scotland has particular strengths rather than aiming to meet all food needs domestically. We must consider the differences between what Scotland produces and what Scottish people enjoy eating, as well as the seasonality of Scottish production of certain products.

Local food can be seen as an opportunity to do things differently. It has the potential to enable local living and help rebuild our economy with wellbeing, sustainability and fair work at its heart, while tackling challenges around health and wellbeing, inequalities and climate change.

Where food is produced within Scotland, we can have confidence that it has been produced in a way that complies with Scotland’s high standards.