How the food and Scotland drinks has changed from locking

After almost two years of locking and lifting restrictions, life began to come back to what many people called a new standard. But was there a lasting inheritance or have we returned to our old methods?

Like the other sectors of the economy, Scottish and drinking companies have been seriously affected by the cocovan. Not only do people in the sector and their families were likely to catch the infection, but they also had to fully adapt their operations to make sure they could continue to work. The impact of restrictions has not been felt uniformly in the sector.

Hospitality has been decimated, with massive impacts for producers who provide these companies. While many supermarkets have recorded record profits in 2020 and 2021, as some people are stored, non -essential retailers have been temporarily closed.

But there was also a bit of a rebirth for food and drinks produced locally. With nothing else to do but stay at home, work (if you have had the chance not to lose your job or be placed on leave), cook, clean and do our best to entertain the children, many people have started to explore options of food and local drinks. Producers who previously sold food services were catalyzed by the disrupted supply chains and began to sell directly to consumers via online markets and delivery services.

This change has rekindled a connection that may have been considered to be acquired before between the consumer and where their food and their drinks come from. The search for our market study body, the knowledge bank, revealed that what people consider to be local have become smaller since 2020 by putting more emphasis on the regionality, not just the national provenance.

For large producers of food and drinks whose supply chains extend on a global scale, COVVID has presented a challenge to negotiate variable national restrictions on the circulation of goods and people. For example, a company selling premium seafood for the outdoor market in Spain should sail on understanding the import rules as well as the impact of national and regional locking in Spain.

And although we can simplify and look at life before, during and after the cage, it was not the only geopolitical tectonic plate moving at the time. The first locking at the UK scale entered into force on March 21, 2020, only two months after the United Kingdom left the EU. Food and drinking exporters have already been seriously affected by new international trade agreements with our largest export market.

In February 2022, the plates moved again while Russia invaded Ukraine. The market reaction has dropped the prices of critical inputs for Scotlers and Scottish drinks – fuel, energy, fertilizers, oils and cereals. The increases were so steep and so clear that companies could not absorb them completely and had to transmit costs (but not critically) on consumers.

Consequently, inflation of food and drinks exceeded 19.2% in the United Kingdom in March 2023. The inflation rate has decreased considerably since then, but food prices such as input prices continue to increase.

But it is not all misfortune and sadness.

Going through aggravating macroeconomic challenges has made the Scottish industry of food and drinks more resilient, more entrepreneurial and more ambitious for future growth. We resisted a large storm and came out on the other side, but with victims along the way.

In 2023, we launched our new industry strategy which, taking into account the main challenges that the sector has faced, aims to put the sector of Scottish food and drinks on the path of sustainable growth and to make the country the best place in the world to manage, operate or work for a food and drinking company. Since then, we have made great progress with partners and with the financing of the support of the Scottish government to achieve these objectives, but there is no longer to do.

To answer the question of whether we have returned to the status quo or live in a new standard, I think we can enter a different standard that has its own challenges and opportunities. Scottish food and drinking companies are full of innovative, workers and ambitious people who work tirelessly to produce some of the world's better quality products.

The markets are open and receptive to the extent of the products in Larder in Scotland. The demand for what we produce remains strong. There is an opportunity for growth of several billion books as well as the ambition to seize it. Instead of a prudent social distancing, we must seize the opportunities open to us if they were courageous enough to take them.

Iain Baxter is the managing director of Scotland Food & Drink