Case Study
Clockwise from left:
1/ Lynsey Gordon
2/ Groceries contract mobilisation event
3/ Councils spend £10.9m each year on Scottish produce
4/ More locally sourced produce is being served in schools.
Photo from stock photography
Lynsey Gordon, Category Manager has been developing and managing
Scotland Excel food contracts since 2014. In this case study, she takes
a look at the work the organisation has been doing to embed national
and local food policy in our contracts.
Scotland Excel’s food portfolio is an integral
part of our commitment to shaping innovative
procurement services for local authorities. We work
hard to ensure that our insight and experience in
this market has a positive impact that reaches far
beyond the food that appears on our plates.
Ensuring Scotland’s extensive public spend on
food and drink supports the nation’s food and
drink sector has been a major focus for the Scottish
Government in recent years. Scottish councils are
increasingly looking to source local produce to
deliver a positive impact for their communities.
That’s why, as our food contracts have evolved
over recent years, we have looked for innovative
ways to use public procurement to make sure more
locally sourced products are available through our
frameworks.
When developing our latest groceries framework,
we took a creative approach to help drive forward
the ambitions of the national Dairy Action Plan.
A secondary price list within the tender process
allowed suppliers to offer Scottish dairy products
as alternatives to those on the core list. Local
authorities have since generated £1.1m of business
for the Scottish cheese sector by switching to a
Scottish product. Local SME suppliers and producers have also
benefited from a new approach to developing our
frozen food framework which went live in 2017.
By incorporating a lot for supply only, smaller
companies without a national distribution network
could bid for a place on the framework. As a result, a
small, family-owned fish company in Aberdeenshire
now has the potential to generate £1m of new
business by supplying Scottish haddock to councils.
We also considered the Dairy Action Plan when
retendering our milk contract. We asked bidders to
demonstrate how they support sustainable farm
gate pricing though a transparent and efficient
supply chain. And, as with previous frameworks, we
ensured that local SME dairies could bid for a place
on the framework alongside national suppliers by
splitting the tender into geographic lots. This year, to include more Scottish meat in our
forthcoming fresh meats framework, and still be
in line with EU Procurement Regulations, we were
able to specifically ask for Scotch Beef and Scotch
Lamb products by including Protected Geographical
Indication (PGI), or equivalent, in our tender.
24 | Shared Vision, Shared Success. Our Corporate Strategy 2018–2023
Across the whole food portfolio, spending by
councils on Scottish products has continued to rise.
It now accounts for £10.9m each year, which is more
than 26% of spend on core products through our
food con tracts. Not only is this approach good for
Scottish business, it’s helping to create a greener
Scotland by reducing our food miles.
Our innovation in food procurement has had a
positive impact on the Scottish economy and
supported our customers in their efforts to ‘source
local’ at competitive prices – all while ensuring
that citizens receive quality produce that supports
healthy lives. We will continue to do what we can
to incorporate locally sourced produce and embed
traceability within our frameworks while continuing
to achieve value and quality.
Shared Vision, Shared Success. Our Corporate Strategy 2018–2023 | 25