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Food and drink champions
01/08/2008
Membership of the new Food and Drink Leadership Forum was announced today.
The short-life forum, announced by Mr Lochhead at the Royal Highland Show in June, will oversee the next stages of the national food and drink policy. The first meeting will take place in Edinburgh on August 20.
Mr Lochhead, who announced the members today and who will chair the forum, said:
"This high-profile group of experts will help the Scottish Government put in place the first national food and drink policy.
"By bringing together key influencers of this calibre, I am confident we can work to deliver a policy which achieves the freshest finest future for Scottish food and drink.
"Given the momentum we have already achieved through the national food discussion, I am keen to keep up the pace, and to harness the enthusiasm of those already involved in bringing about positive change in our culture around food and drink.
"The time is right for a fresh new future for Scottish food and drink. There is already a significant amount of work ongoing across Government and the leadership forum will help ensure we continue to pull this all together in a coherent way."
The forum will include food champions for the following themes: the economy, health, environment and access and affordability.
Other members will include the chairs of the various activity groups taking forward specific areas of work, including chef and restaurateur Martin Wishart and Vice-Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission, Professor Jan Bebbington.
Membership of the forum and respective roles as follows:
Chair
- Richard Lochhead, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment
Food Champions
- Ken Mackenzie, Chair of the Scottish Retail Consortium and retired Director of the Scottish Co-operative - Champion for the economy
- Professor Phil Hanlon, Professor of Public Health, University of Glasgow - Champion for health
- Professor Jan Bebbington, Sustainable Development Commission - Champion for the environment
- Dave Simmers, Strategic Co-ordinator, Community Food Initiatives North East - Champion for access and affordability
Other Members
- Jim Mather, Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism
- Shona Robison, Minister for Public Health.
- Allan Burns, Chair of Scotland Food and Drink - Activity group chair, workstream 1 'Supporting sustainable economic growth of the food and drink industry'
- Professor Annie Anderson, University of Dundee - Activity group chair, workstream 2 'Food choices'
- Martin Wishart, Chef and restaurateur - Activity group chair, workstream 3 'Enhancing Scotland's reputation as a land of food and drink'
- Robin Gourlay, Head of Catering, East Ayrshire Council - Activity group chair, workstream 4 'Walking the talk - getting Government right'
- Reverend Professor David Atkinson, Chair of the Scottish Churches Rural Group - Activity group chair, workstream 5 'Affordability, access and security'
- Gavin Hewitt, Chief Executive of Scotch Whisky Association
The National Food and Drink Policy for Scotland will be the first cross-cutting policy on food and drink developed in the UK. The activity groups have been asked to report back with initial findings and recommendations by early 2009.