Isles presence at food and drink summit

SHETLAND’s new food and drink organisation attended a regional summit with fellow food groups from around Scotland last week to discuss how to strengthen the sector.

Shetland Food and Drink was one of 16 regional groups to take park the event in Inverness.

Manager Jill Franklin gave a presentation to attendees and she said there was a big interest in Shetland’s food and drink sector.

Shetland Food and Drink now has over 50 members, and it has attracted individual members from the US, Australia and Norway after it was opened up to the public.

“People are interested in Shetland generally, and people know about fish and seafood and they know about lamb, but what many of the attendees at the summit didn’t know was the depth of activities,” Franklin said.

“People were interested about our online retail presence.”

Industry development director at Scotland Food & Drink Graham Young said: “Growing sales of regional food and drink is central to continuing the success of our industry and it was extremely positive to see the energy and appetite amongst the groups to be involved in these discussions.”