The Highlands and Islands food and drink forum reaches out

This month's Highlands and Islands Food and Drink Forum (held Tuesday 27 November) drew a record attendance of 55 to its Inverness meeting, with video-conferencing links to another eight locations across the region as speakers considered the subject of a 'Local Food Economy'.

A range of speakers shared their local food experiences and demonstrated different models for tackling the challenge of distribution for the food and drink industry. The excellent turnout showed how much interest there is in developing distribution links for producers and growers throughout the region.

Through video-conferencing, the event was also attended by groups and individuals in locations across the area from Shetland to Bute. These locations face an even greater challenge in accessing markets and so it was particularly appropriate that they could hear of others' experiences without having to incur time and travel costs to themselves.

Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) senior food and drink development manager Mark Georgeson said: "I am delighted that the forum is developing links to locations throughout the Highlands and Islands as that is exactly what the forum set out to do. We have some great speakers lined up for the coming months including Richard Lochhead, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Environment."

Presenters included Simon Michaels of www.localfoodshop.co.uk, an online market place that enables customers to find out where they can source locally produced food and drink. Set up as a community interest company by producers, it aims to develop a distribution hub to increase sales.

David Lamb of Scottish Agricultural College outlined the results of the recent work carried out for HIE on the distribution needs of the food and drink industry followed by the real life case-study of Ullapool Smokehouse, who told of their positive experience of distributing fresh product from the north west Highlands.

Jo Hunt of Highlands and Islands Local Food Network reported on the success of Gates Open, a project to encourage consumers to visit growers and producers in the area, while Carole Inglis of Skye and Lochalsh Food Link told how their local food economy had grown by building strong links with tourism and how the producer-nominated 'Taste of Local Food' awards gets local food on the menu.

The next meeting of the Forum is on Monday 28 January when Richard Lochhead, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Environment will address the Forum.