Scotland's food and drink industry must grasp every opportunity to market itself as 'the best in the world', according to Alastair Salvesen, president of the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, writes Karen Peattie in the Scottish newspaper, The Sunday Herald.This is the message which will be hammered home this week at the Royal Highland Show, which was cancelled last year as a result of the foot-and-mouth epidemic. Salvesen said: "Scottish food and the environment in which it is produced is recognised as being the best in the world and that is surely a marvellous advertising platform for the industry.
Our food goes through more tests and trials than any other in the world and we are raising our standards all the time. Yet the public doesn't know this because we aren't being positive enough."
Peattie cites the fact that Salvesen is confident that the four-day show at Ingliston, near Edinburgh, will attract in excess of 150,000 visitors and boost the beleaguered farming industry and rural economy's recovery from the crisis.
"My feeling is that the farming world has been too slow at sending out a positive message about the quality of what it produces,"he said."Our industry needs to push itself forward and focus on what's good about Scottish food, not dwell on problems like foot-and-mouth, BSE and e-coli."
According to the article, the Scottish Executive has set ambitious targets for Scotland's food industry - £200 million (€312.7m) in new investment by 2006, and exports, excluding whisky, of £500m by 2004. And with sales of £7.3 billion, including record whisky sales announced last week of £2.3bn in 2001, the industry is a vital contributor to the Scottish economy.
Salvesen is chairman of Uddingston-based Dawnfresh Foods, the £20m turnover shellfish producer, and also a non-executive director of Yorkshire-based Richmond Foods, the UK's largest ice cream manufacturer.