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News
Year of Food & Drink launched by Tourism Minister Jim Mather
The Scottish Government news release 26/05/2010
Tourism Minister Jim Mather launched a year-long celebration of Scotland's iconic produce today.
Mr Mather was at Edinburgh Castle to signal the start of a year that will unite Scottish Tourism businesses in a national drive to promote Scotland as a land of food and drink.
He announced the Scottish Government will invest £500,000 in delivering events and activities to showcase the best of authentic Scottish cuisine and encourage more use of local, fresh and seasonal produce across the tourism industry.
The year-long focus will build on the success of Homecoming 2009 in rallying Scotland around a common theme.
Its launch follows yesterday's announcement by the First Minister that Scotland will host a second Year of Homecoming in 2014, following the news that the 2009 event significantly exceeded its economic target - generating an additional £53.7 million in tourism revenue.
Tourism Minister Jim Mather said:
"The tourism sector is playing a vital role in Scotland's recovery and was instrumental in our recent return to growth - attracting more than 15 million visitors and having a significant economic impact during the year of Homecoming.
"It makes strong economic sense to build on this success by spotlighting some of Scotland's greatest assets as we build towards a second year of Homecoming in 2014.
"The build-up starts today with the launch of a year-long celebration of Scotland's delicious, authentic and high quality produce, and will continue with a focus on Active Scotland in 2011; our nation's creativity and innovation in 2012; and Natural Scotland in 2013.
"We will work with organisations from across Scotland in a determined and unified effort to deliver our Homecoming legacy programme and attract even more visitors from around the world to sample a taste of what Scotland has to offer."
Dr Mike Cantlay, Chairman of VisitScotland, said:
"Food and drink has the potential to provide significant growth for tourism, with visitors to Scotland already spending one pound in every five pounds on food and drink-related activity. Scotland has a fantastic natural larder and the year of food and drink is an excellent opportunity to showcase this country's growing reputation as a world-class culinary destination. This campaign will also encourage people here in Scotland to experience the great produce on their doorstep."
Paul McLaughlin, chief executive of Scotland Food and Drink said:
"The year of food and drink is an excellent platform to help us promote Scotland's outstanding produce both in the UK and across the world. Scotland Food and Drink will be working hard to maximise awareness of the country's premium products throughout the year and we'll be working closely with our members and others within the tourism and food and drink industries to ensure that awareness and benefit is maximised for consumers and producers alike."
"Events such as Scottish Food Fortnight and the year of food and drink mean this year is set to be extremely important in helping us reach our target of growing the industry to £12.5 billion by 2017."
A range of events will place focus on Scotland's iconic produce in 2010. They include:
• Royal Highland Show, Ingliston, Edinburgh, 24-27 June
• The Scottish Traditional Boat Festival, Portsoy, 26-27 June
• World Pipe Band Championships, Glasgow, 14 August
• Largs Viking Festival, 1-5 September
• Dundee Flower and Food Festival, 3-5 September
• Huntly Hairst Food Festival, 4-5 September
• BBC Good Food Show Scotland, Glasgow, 22-24 October
Details of further events will be provided in due course.
Watch this space for more news and events