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The policy will encourage more food to be bought and eaten locally, and will help to join up thinking around many portfolios including enterprise, education, health, environment and transport.

Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Development Richard Lochhead told Holyrood:

"This is a trend that’s been happening over recent years here in Scotland, a trend towards local quality food and raising Scotland’s profile as a food-producing nation. It crosses into so many different agendas. It goes into the health agenda, we have some of the healthiest foods in the world, yet we are unhealthy as a nation.

As well as the environmental agenda, cutting down unnecessary food miles, we might not be growing bananas in Scotland so we might need to import them but there are other foods we’re importing that we’re producing on Scotland’s own doorstep, which is crazy in this day and age.

It’s never been joined up before, and I find that so frustrating, but the timing’s right now to do it because now we’re in government and obviously, [we] have the opportunity to do it, as these trends over the last few years are coming to a head. If we had a National Food Policy for Scotland, we could tackle some of these issues."

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