- Glasgow Airport’s Scotland & Sea Food Court wins Taste Our Best award
EDINBURGH, Scotland, 2017-Jun-15 — /Travel PR News/ —Glasgow Airport has become the first airport in Scotland to boast a coveted food and drink standards award – its Scotland & Sea Food Court has won a Taste Our Best award.
The Quality Assurance accreditation from VisitScotland certifies the excellence and provenance of the food and drink available at Scotland & Sea’s airport eateries.
Taste Our Best, a joint initiative between VisitScotland and the Scottish Government, is designed to recognise businesses – including hotels, restaurants, cafes, takeaways, visitor attractions and B&Bs – that not only offer a quality food and drink experience but also include and promote Scottish produce on their menus, giving consumers more choice and an authentic experience.
The scheme provides businesses with an assessment by qualified assessors of their food provision and menu, with those meeting the necessary criteria receiving the Taste Our Best accreditation.The award provides consumers with an independent and trusted assurance of standards and in addition, offers businesses a valuable marketing tool.
Scotland & Sea comprises four outlets providing different catering offerings, with dishes freshly prepared and cooked on the premises.The separate sports bar and grill, deli, buffet-style restaurant and café bar offer a wide variety of dining options, from grab and go light bites to lunch.
The Food Court is operated by global catering specialist Delaware North, which invested over £2m five years ago to transform the Glasgow Airport Food Court into a stylish, contemporary and comfortable dining hall.
Paula McGee of Delaware North said: “Our priority is to provide our customers with a great, relaxed dining experience, enjoying food of the highest standards – and using quality produce is key to that.Scotland is very fortunate to have superb produce so it’s important to make the most of those rich resources and to be able to give our Scotland & Sea customers a real taste of Scotland.
“Our efforts to ensure we do that have been well supported by our suppliers – Bidvest Foodservice, Campbells Prime Meat and McGhee’s Bakery – who appreciate the impact of carefully considering the seasonality and provenance of produce. We are indebted to them, and to the hard work and dedication of all of the staff at our Scotland & Sea outlets, in helping us achieve our Taste Our Best award.
“We are absolutely delighted to have won this important accreditation and we’re proud too to have enabled Glasgow Airport to become the first in Scotland to have it.”
Denise Gilmour, Head of Retail at Glasgow Airport,said: “We are thrilled to receive this award, and to be the first airport in Scotland to gain ‘Taste Our Best’ accreditation is a wonderful achievement for all of the people who work tremendously hard each day to provide a fantastic variety of catering options for our passengers and colleagues.
“The Delaware North team at the airport has put in an incredible amount of effort to ensure Scotland & Sea meets the standards required to not only provide a first-class experience, but that the Scotland and Sea menu highlights the very best produce out country has to offer.
“As the airport’s tagline suggests, we are proud to serve Scotland. We’re also proud to promote Scotland’s rich and varied larder.”
Liz Buchanan MBE, VisitScotland Regional Partnerships Director, said: “My congratulations go to Scotland & Sea on winning this important Quality Assurance accolade. This is great news too for Glasgow Airport which is already well-known for its commitment to giving all of its customers and millions of visitors to Scotland, the warmest of welcomes as well as excellent hospitality.
“From bars to B&Bs and takeaways to teashops, Taste Our Best is open to any business with a food and drink offering. With research indicating that three out of four visitors to Scotland believe eating local cuisine will enhance their visit, Taste Our Best really is a recipe for success. It is an extremely worthwhile award to work toward as it really does boost business.”
Around 58% of all visitors to Scotland and 71% of overseas visitors to our country eat in a pub or bar, whilst almost half (49%) of all visitors want to try local food – giving hospitality businesses an ideal opportunity to capitalise on the increasing interest in the nation’s natural larder.
Research has shown that visitors are willing to pay up to 15% more for food that is of Scottish or regional origin, and businesses which provide and promote their use of local produce can typically enjoy higher level sales of up to 20% per year, providing a real financial incentive for businesses to sign up to the accreditation scheme.
It is estimated that tourism’s contribution to Scotland’s food and drink industry is worth £2.5 million per day to country’s economy, with sampling traditional dishes and local produce among the top activities undertaken by visitors to Scotland.
To find out more about the Taste Our Best scheme, visit: www.visitscotland.com/taste-our-best.aspx
For more details on Delaware North, visit: www.delawarenorth.com
Notes to Editors
-
- Follow us on twitter: @visitscotnews
- VisitScotland is Scotland’s national tourism organisation. Its core purpose is to maximise the economic benefit of tourism to Scotland.
- The organisation’s core objective is to contribute to the Tourism 2020 Strategy ambition of growing tourism revenues by £1 billion by 2020.
- This will be supported by seven overarching strategies:
- Marketing: we will market Scotland and its outstanding assets to visitors from all parts of the world, including the promotion of Scotland to people living in Scotland to visit different parts of the country
- Events: we will support the national events strategy and its delivery, and sustain, develop and promote Scotland’s international profile as one of the world’s foremost events destinations
- Internationalisation and International Engagement: we will utilise all our platforms to enable Scottish-based tourism businesses to better understand international opportunities and market to a global audience and we will work within One Scotland Partnerships to optimise the potential of Scotland’s Diaspora and our strategic partners at regional, European and global levels
- Customer Experience: we will provide information and inspiration to visitors both locally and globally via their preferred medium of choice
- Quality and Sustainability: we will provide support and advice to businesses, with the goal of improving the quality and sustainability of the tourism sector in Scotland. We will provide quality assurance to visitors through our Quality Schemes
- Inclusive Tourism: we will strive to make tourism in Scotland inclusive and available to all
- Working in Partnership: we will listen to and work with the industry, partners and communities to shape our offering and support
- To ensure everyone can safely enjoy Scotland’s amazing countryside and landscapes, VisitScotland encourages all visitors to fully respect their surroundings by behaving in a responsible and appropriate way.
- VisitScotland works together with tourism businesses to make tourism a success for everyone and ensure the industry continues to grow.
- The organisation employs 700 people and has offices and VisitScotland Information Centres across Scotland.
- Spending by tourists in Scotland generates around £12 billion of economic activity in the wider Scottish supply chain and contributes around £6 billion to Scottish GDP (in basic prices). This represents about 5% of total Scottish GDP
- The Scottish Government is the Managing Authority for the European Structural Funds 2014-20 Programme. For further information visit www.gov.scot or follow @scotgovESIF
- For VisitScotland’s press releases go to http://www.visitscotland.org/media_centre.aspx, tourism statistics and frequently asked questions go to http://www.visitscotland.org/
- Where possible, a Gaelic speaker will be made available for broadcast interviews on request (Far an tèid iarraidh, agus far am bheil sin nar comas, bruidhinnidh neach le Gàidhlig aig agallamh)
2017 Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology
- 2017 is the year to delve into the past and discover Scotland’s fascinating stories through a wide-ranging variety of new and existing activity to drive the nation’s tourism and events sector, boosting tourism across Scotland.
- The Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology begins on 1 January 2017 and will end on 31 December 2017. It will build on the momentum generated by previous themed years in Scotland including the 2015 Year of Food and Drink, Homecoming Scotland 2014, the Year of Creative and the Year of Natural.
- The Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology is a Scottish Government initiative being led by VisitScotland, and supported by a variety of partners including Creative Scotland, Scottish Tourism Alliance, Scottish Enterprise, The National Trust for Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Built Environment Forum Scotland, Heritage Lottery Fund, Museums Galleries Scotland and Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland.
- The Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology is supported by £570,000 of Scottish Government funding.
- The Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology events fund is managed by EventScotland, part of VisitScotland’s Events Directorate.
- For more information visit visitscotland.com/HHA2017 or join the conversation at #HHA2017
Contact:
Ellen Drummond
VisitScotland Corporate Press Officer
T: 0141 566 4019
M: 07801 820757
E: ellen.drummond@visitscotland.com
Source: Visitscotland
###