The Scotland supermarket Shelfwatch survey carried out by independent researchers on behalf of National Farmers' Union (NFU) Scotland has concluded, finding that discounter Aldi offered the largest proportion of Scottish produce overall.
A total of 71 stores across Scotland were reviewed, with researchers looking at 15,000 beef, lamb, pork, chicken, eggs, vegetables and dairy products available across eight different retailers.
Researchers reviewed the country of origin of products being offered by the stores' own brands to identify if they were Scottish, British or imported, and all retailers involved in the survey were notified in advance.
The results showed that Aldi had the largest percentage of Scottish produce overall at 48.7%, while Sainsbury's was reported to have the lowest percentage of Scottish produce at 7.6%. Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury's all had less than 10% Scottish produce, and overall the largest percentage of other produce was from the UK.
Aldi had the largest percentage of pork, bacon and sausages labelled as Scottish, and six retailers had no Scottish labelled pork. NFU Scotland said that most of the non-Scottish pork was from the UK, and that Asda (33%) and Tesco (17.3%) were importing fresh pork.
Aldi, Lidl and Morrisons had more than 70% of Scottish beef. The largest amount of beef in other stores came from the UK. Tesco and Sainsbury's had Irish beef, with the largest percentage of Irish beef found in Sainsbury's with 10.4%.
Lidl had the largest percentage of Scottish lamb at 100%, followed by M&S with 83.6%. Asda and Co-op reportedly had no Scottish lamb on offer, while Aldi, M&S, Asda and Tesco had imported lamb.
A total of 86.7% of Scottish chicken was found at Aldi, followed by Co-op with 73%. Both Tesco and Sainsbury's had no Scottish chicken available.
A "mixed bag"
John Davidson, chief executive of NFU Scotland, said: "The results from the Shelfwatch survey unveil a completely mixed bag of what is going on in shops across the country available to Scotland's consumers.
"While it is encouraging to see that there is strong support for Scottish and UK produce in general and examples of some retailers stocking 100% Scottish, others appear to have absolutely none on their shelves in some sectors.
"Clearly more can be done to ensure consumers are able to source more local produce. This also begs some questions on labelling and marketing and whether consumers have full transparency of the origin."
Davidson said: "The ways in which Scottish consumers can support local produce through the likes of local shops and butchers, farm shops, farmers' markets, and direct sales from the farm are growing. But supermarkets remain the dominant force when it comes to food sales.
"To succeed in our ultimate goal of seeing more Scottish produce stocked, priced and promoted on the shelves of supermarkets across the country appropriately and primary producers fairly rewarded for their critical role in the supply chain, we will need a collaborative approach with retailers and other key stakeholders including Governments to take ownership of their role within each supply chain.
"This Shelfwatch provides the ideal platform to benchmark against over the year ahead when looking for improvements in the marketplace and for these essential discussions with supermarkets on responsible treatment of suppliers and guaranteed delivery of a fair price to producers for the food they produce."
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
