Sustainable Procurement Tools

Scotland Excel Approach

Scotland Excel has, for over 15 years, developed and evolved its portfolio of food procurement frameworks to deliver value, quality produce for councils, while also creating wider benefits for Scotland’s economy.  

Food portfolio:

There are 6 frameworks within the Scotland Excel food and drink portfolio, worth a collective £83 million per annum, supplying products to schools, nurseries, care homes and community centres. They are:

1. Groceries and Provisions framework: 3 lots – Dairy and Chilled, Dried Goods & Ambient and Crisps, Confectionery, Soft Drinks and Water. 
2. Frozen Foods.
3. Fresh Meats, Cooked Meats and Fresh Fish.
4. Fresh Milk.
5. Fresh Fruit and Vegetables, and
6. Fresh Bread, Rolls and Bakery Products. 

Within the Milk and Fruit & Vegetables frameworks there are lots dedicated to organic products, and all other frameworks have organic product groupings.  Scotland Excel considers the relevant and proportionate application of fair and ethical trading principles in all of its procurement activities, including specific product groupings for fair and ethically traded products within the Groceries and Provisions framework.

Supporting national policies and local authorities:

Scotland Excel supports national policy and local authorities in a number of ways. For example:

• Supporting the Sustainable Procurement Duty through the use of Sustainable Procurement Tools to help identify relevant risks and opportunities and food framework requirements.
• Ensuring frameworks meet the requirements of all relevant legislation e.g. The Nutritional Requirements for Food and Drink in Schools (Scotland) Regulations 2020 (amended 2023) and Setting the Table - Nutritional guidance and food standards for early years childcare providers in Scotland (2018).
• Working with local authorities to ensure that relevant Good Food Nation Plans are appropriately applied in future food frameworks.

Local Sourcing – enabling Scottish businesses:

Local authorities are inevitably focused on local economic, sustainable, development. As such there may be a perception that a collaborative framework will not always match their local aims. Scotland Excel includes council representatives in its procurement process to ensure local ambitions are being incorporated as far as possible within collaborative framework arrangements.

The following provides examples of approaches within Scotland Excel frameworks to make them more accessible to Scottish businesses, thereby supporting local authority aims:

Framework(s)	Aim	Action
Frozen foods (and Groceries and Provisions).	Enable smaller suppliers that didn’t have national delivery logistics in place to bid.	Suppliers able to bid to supply food only. This approach was so successful that Scotland Excel also followed it for their groceries and provisions framework, leading to the appointment of 5 SME suppliers to that framework. An example is an Aberdeen fish supplier, which is now in the Brakes catalogue, opening doors to other potential markets across the public and private sector in the UK.
Groceries and Provisions.	Support the Scottish Government’s Dairy Action Plan, to include more Scottish produce in our groceries contract for yoghurt, butter, cheese, and margarine.	As above and included a secondary price list within the tender to promote the availability of Scottish dairy products to give local authorities the option of Scottish products.
Fresh Meats, Cooked Meats and Fresh Fish.	To bring more Scottish produce onto the meats framework, while still being in line with procurement regulations.	Specifically ask for Scotch Beef and Scotch Lamb by including Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) in our tender. As a result, more than 77% of produce purchased on their meats framework last year was sourced from Scotland.
Various	Work with suppliers to help bring Scottish SMEs on to the frameworks where possible.	Split frameworks into different local authority areas where a supplier could bid for one, any, or all 32 local authority areas, without being penalised.  In some cases, split a local authority into further regional lots if there were local suppliers that may be able to bid for certain parts of their authority but not all of it.  For example, divided Argyll & Bute into several smaller sublots to make it more accessible for local suppliers.

As we considered earlier spend on Scottish food products has increased to more than 34% of total spend under all Scotland Excel frameworks. 

In 2023, 77% of spend on the fresh meats, cooked meats and fresh fish framework was on Scottish produce, and 98% of milk spend is on Scottish milk.

Stakeholder engagement:

Scotland Excel continues to engage with public sector stakeholders, as well as suppliers, Scottish food producers and manufacturers:

Public sector stakeholders:

• The Scottish Government, the Soil Association, Scotland Food and Drink, Quality Meats Scotland, APSE and ASSIST FM.

• Through the quarterly ‘Scottish Public Food Forum’, co-hosted by Scotland Excel, ASSIST FM and Nourish Scotland and attended by most local authorities, Scotland Food and Drink coordinators and key national stakeholders: supporting work on catering and procurement, enabling collaboration by local authority officers to share good practice.  This offers a way to effectively communicate with all 32 local authorities. This supports Catering Managers who are typically very supportive of the Scotland Excel and national aims, and who may be responsible for seeking the Food for Life Served Here award for their meals services.
• Scotland Excel also represents local authorities on the Scottish Government Public Sector Food Forum and are members of the Scottish Organic Stakeholders Group, Scottish Government Local Food Steering Group and the Scottish Milk and Healthy Snack Scheme - Implementation and Operation Group.
• In conjunction with the Scottish Government, liaison with Governments and public buyers across other UK Nations, collaborating and sharing good practice and plans which may impact on Scottish policies and food procurement (e.g. update to Government Buying Standard for food and catering).

Suppliers, Scottish food producers and manufacturers:

• Providing clarity of intended sustainable outcomes, including making them more accessible to Scottish businesses, ensuring that the appropriate balance of requirements is in place, avoiding an unnecessary burden.
• Understanding the market’s capability and capacity and Scotland Excel and local authorities’ ability to influence sustainable outcomes through supply chains regarding healthy, sustainable food and related issues, such as packaging, providing or signposting to appropriate support where relevant.
• Sharing good practice, such as the example of food waste reduction by McLays Foods.
• Scotland Excel encourages suppliers to work with the Supplier Development Programme (SDP), to enable them to bid effectively for frameworks.

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