A group of food and drink industry representatives in the Highlands and Islands have come together to establish the Highlands and Islands Food and Drink Forum, under the Scottish Food and Drink umbrella.

The official launch of the new organisation - which is fully funded by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) - takes place next month (Tuesday 2nd March) at the Inverness Caledonian Thistle Stadium. 

Key speaker at the inaugural event is Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association, an organisation which has considerable influence over food and farming policy, both with the Government and through its high media profile.

The food and drink sector is extremely important to the economy of the Highlands and Islands, generating sales in excess of £600 million per annum and supporting over 10,000 full-time equivalent jobs across the region.  The range of products is diverse from fish to meat and from jam to cheese.  Equally diverse is the profile of the sector with world-renowned businesses such as Baxters of Fochabers and Walkers Shortbread to small, innovative producers successfully supplying niche markets.

The Highlands and Islands Food and Drink Forum is being set up to provide meeting and networking opportunities for food producers, customers, suppliers and service providers.  It also aims to deliver a high quality programme of speakers and discussion groups on subjects relevant to businesses and their development and wants to ensure that businesses are kept up to date with the services offered by Scottish Food and Drink and other sources.

Explaining the reasons behind setting up the Forum, Dennis Overton, chair of the Highlands and Islands Food and Drink Forum said: "Highland food and drink producers have much in common in terms of the threats and opportunities we face.  We can do more to realise the full potential of this important sector of the economy if we consider some of these issues together.  The Forum will provide that opportunity.

"The Forum has been initiated by eight Highland businesses who believe a stimulating programme of relevant events will help each of us to grow our businesses.  It will allow those of us in the North to connect into the wider, industry led Scottish Food and Drink programme of activity.  I hope the Forum will quickly become established as a valuable place of inspiration, challenge, ideas and information exchange.  We extend a warm welcome to all food and drink businesses in the north."

Rob Clarke, a key industries manager at HIE said: "This sector is vital to the economy of the area and the Forum will play a key role in helping the industry work together with the HIE network, raising its game to take advantage of new opportunities.  I hope the Forum will build on the undoubted spirit of co-operation among businesses and lead to profitable collaboration between food and drink businesses, their suppliers and customers."

The Highlands and Islands Food and Drink Forum has already organised events for later in the year.  Nick Nairn, celebrity chef and managing director of Enterprise Foods, will be at the next event on Tuesday 6th April where the focus will be the issues facing Highland food and drink businesses in the face of rising obesity levels and Scotland's deep fried Mars bar culture of food consumption. Further details can be found on the Scottish Food and Drink website, www.scottishfoodanddrink.com