2011 Scotland Food and Drink Excellence Awards

Thu, 09 Jun 2011

2011 Scotland Food and Drink Excellence Awards

At the end of May, the 20 winners of the 2011 Scotland Food & Drink Excellence Awards were announced.

From St James Smokehouse to Borders Biscuits and Graham's the Family Dairy, a whole variety of producers and individuals were recognised for their hard work and outstanding contribution to Scotland's food and drink industry.

Scotland may be better known for the quality of its whisky and haggis but chocolate-lovers everywhere may be surprised to know that a Perthshire chocolatier was announced as the recipient of VisitScotland's Food Tourism Award. 

Based in Grandtully in Perthshire, The Highland Chocolatier is a chocolate maker with a dedicated chocolate exhibition.  The business was praised for its continuous growth over the past five years and its innovative expansion to provide a well rounded and year round visitor experience.  Above all, the judges were impressed by the obvious passion and quality of the chocolate produced. Riddell Graham, Director of Partnerships at VisitScotland presented the award and was delighted to be at the ceremony:

'Food and drink is integral to the experience of visitors to Scotland and these awards have been a wonderful opportunity to build on Scotland's Year of Food & Drink and our EatScotland quality assurance scheme by highlighting some of Scotland's food heroes.  It's been great to see so many quality food and drink producers welcoming visitors in such enthusiastic and imaginative ways.'

The two runner's up in this highly contested category which are also excellent visitor attractions for keen foodies are:

Craigies Farm Deli & Café, South Queensferry, Edinburgh

Waterfront Restaurant, Oban, Argyll