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7. Conclusions

This concluding section comprises two parts: first, a brief evaluation of the discussion process is presented and second, the main overall points found in the analysis are summarised.

7.1 A brief evaluation of the discussion process

The analysis indicates that the discussion process has been relatively effective in engaging with and gathering views from individual consumers and business people (259 written responses), business organisations from throughout the food supply system (61 responses), and non-business organisations (121 responses). ⁷ No major attempts to bias the discussion have been detected. However, the question of how successfully the discussion process on the Future for Food in Scotland engaged with society can only be answered by considering each stage of the discussion process.

7.1.1 Stakeholder events

The 13 stakeholder meetings, which were attended by Ministers and Government officials, gave rise to 12 records of proceedings, which were submitted to the Scottish Government and project team. These indicate that they were attended by 605 individuals with 315 organisations being represented. Views were expressed on a wide range of topics. Only 14 from those attending could be categorised as individual (or unattached) consumers. These figures suggest that the individual consumer, not associated with an organisation of some form, was under-represented within the events. The only negative comments that were encountered about these events came through a number of written responses, which indicated that the cost of attending an event had prevented the correspondent from attending.

7.1.2 Written responses

The 441 written responses reflected:

• Good representation from individuals (59% of responses) and organisations (41%)
• Low representation from individual businesses (2%) but markedly more from individual consumers (57%)
• Businesses and their organisations made up 15% of responses, in general giving very detailed comments.

It would appear that businesses tended to rely on their representative organisations and stakeholder events to reflect their interests, whilst individual consumers and non- business organisations (involved with the environment, health, education, consumer issues, etc.) engaged more frequently in the process. There was a reasonable distribution of responses from across the country with all major parts of the food sector communicating their interests.

7.1.3 The blog

The blog with its video clips and text presentations gave rise to 108 comments with 80 individuals being represented. This might be considered as a limited response over a period of almost 12 weeks. It may be that the blog received inadequate publicity to generate high levels of public engagement. It should also be noted that the comments were largely reactions to the triggers/prompts placed on the blog web site Thus the comments focused on: local food (41 occurrences); healthy diet (31); education at school (29); fish farming and its impact on environment (26); fast food (12); growing your own (11) and allotments (8). In summary, the blog comments complemented the results from the analysis of the written responses.

7.1.4 Conclusion on the effectiveness of the discussion process

Overall the discussion process may be regarded as having engaged widely with Scottish consumers, business and other food-related interests, and generated views on a wide range of issues. The discussion, however, might have benefited from greater publicity on how to engage in the discussion.

7.2. Conclusions on the findings

7.2.1 Broad topics and issues

The national discussion launched in January 2008 encouraged different segments of Scottish society to participate, providing opinions on specific topics or addressing a large proportion of the topics covered in the discussion document. In this sense, the answers provide a rich pool of opinions and demands, some of them conflicting. The following paragraphs try to summarise the major conclusions reached in the analysis.

The broad topics raised during the discussion can be viewed in the context of the Scottish Government's 5 strategic objectives.

Wealthier and Fairer: issues concerning the labour market; various features of domestic and export markets including the marketing channels by which food is supplied; prices for producers and consumers; the interests of the primary producers, processors and distributors in the food and drink supply system; the interaction of food with local economies, communities and tourism; the need for fairness in food trade and the importance of food related research.

Smarter: issues relating to the education of children and adults; food labelling and traceability; and collaboration within food systems to achieve improvement in food supply and high standards of animal welfare.

Healthier: concerns relating to food safety and diet and nutrition; the promotion of food and healthy living; and the role of public establishments in providing good quality food.

Safer and Stronger: external factors affecting global food supply and Scotland's capacity for food production, as well as issues of food access for all parts of society and the assistance that is provided by community initiatives.

Greener: issues surrounding organic and environmentally friendly food production; food waste and packaging; local food and the distance travelled by food from the point of production to purchase and consumption; and the merits of people being involved in growing their own.

The stakeholder events involved the participation of organisations covering different interest areas and with varied profiles. However, the responses in the event files were more focused and addressed particular policy areas such as those involving profit, management and markets for specific products. Overall, the stakeholder meetings showed a consensus amongst respondents that the main issues related to food production and consumption in Scotland should be addressed collectively.

There were many different views expressed in the written responses and stakeholder events in relation to each of the above topics, and unsurprisingly, different stakeholders offered differing views. For example, consumer, education and environmental groups tended to focus on health, education and environmental concerns. In contrast, producer and distribution groups tended to focus on economic and competitiveness issues whilst simultaneously being concerned about social welfare. Individual consumers, however, focussed on diet and nutrition, local food issues and education as their top 3 concerns. Taking all 441 written responses together, the top 10 topics were as follows (the percentage of total responses in which the topic was raised is shown in brackets).

It should also be noted that there was considerable agreement across the Scottish regions in terms of the most frequently raised issues, although the order differed slightly. Diet and nutrition ranked top of the regional listing in all but the North West where it ranked second after local food and local economies.

The local (Scottish or more locally defined) provenance of food featured prominently in the responses of organisations and individuals. Whilst organisations were concerned with the economic sustainability of farm and food sector activities and the issues of food supply and security, individuals placed greater emphasis on food quality, availability and diet. With respect to education, both individuals and organisations promoted the importance of child education and experience in school, with the importance of home economics strongly represented. Organisations in particular urged greater consumer education, which is strongly linked to the health aspects of diet and Scottish food culture and lifestyle; an issue for organisations and individuals alike. On the environment, organisations stressed energy issues, carbon footprints, climate change and food miles, whilst individuals raised similar issues but also focussed on remaining GM free within the food system. A series of food access issues - local outlets, supermarket access, poverty and disadvantage, and food provision through public sector establishments - were also very prominent for individuals.

7.2.2. Issues for further debate and policy development

The breadth and volume of responses to the Discussion show that food and drink touch the lives of everybody in Scotland - some because they work in the industry, all because they are consumers - and that a variety of different perspectives exist. Policy options to address the concerns identified cover a wide spectrum of possibilities, ranging from providing better information, to offering funding and other incentives, to appropriate regulation. In each case, various examples were suggested explicitly by respondents and/or inferred implicitly from analysis of responses. Across the five Strategic Objectives, particular emphasis was placed on the need for further debate and policy development for certain topics, including:

• Raising consumer and producer awareness through information provision, publicity and - especially - school & adult education.
• Offering financial or practical support/advice (including local public procurement) to help adjustment to consumer and producer behaviour.
• Using regulation appropriately (sometimes tighter, sometime looser) to force change to consumer and producer habits.

Furthermore, across the five Strategic Objectives, particular emphasis was placed on the need for further debate and policy development for certain topics, including:

Wealthier & fairer: the importance of a competitive and secure food & drink industry and the need to support quality domestic production through various mechanisms, such as public sector procurement.

Smarter: the role of adult and school education plus food labelling in raising awareness of issues such as health, diet and nutrition and the provenance of food and drink.

Healthier: the importance of reinforcing messages about diet and nutrition through various forms of health promotion and the potential for meals in public institutions to lead by example.

Safer & stronger: the importance of ensuring equitable access to food across society, including through greater use of local arrangements and securing supplies in the face of external factors.

Greener: the impact of food production and consumption on the environment and the role of different supply and demand arrangements for reducing this.

Overall the discussion process may be regarded as having engaged widely with Scottish consumers, business and other food-related interests, and has evoked a very positive response from the people of Scotland with views on a wide range of issues being expressed.

Reconciling some of the different objectives and perspectives of "what" food and drink should be produced and consumed and "how" it should be produced and consumed may not be easy. Any National Food Policy will have to be multi-faceted, simultaneously addressing concerns as varied as public health, economic efficiency, environmental costs, distributional equity and security of supplies. Moreover, its implementation will necessarily involve a range of Government departments and non-government organisations, and it will need to achieve a greater degree of co-ordination than is currently displayed across separate but related policy areas such as agriculture, fishing, health, education and environment.

Whilst an agreed vision of a sustainable food and drink system has perhaps yet to be reached, the information provided by responses to the Discussion Paper represents a significant contribution to the process of identifying such a vision and will help to shape the manner in which Scottish food and drink production and consumption choices will be framed by a future National Food Policy.

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