Scottish Government

year as part of the International Cheese Festival from 3rd – 6th November. The international jury consisted of 250 experts who awarded Parmigiano Reggiano an all-time record of 7 Super Gold medals, 6 of which were won by dairies belonging to the National Team. Parmigiano Reggiano is the most awarded cheese in the world and won the most Super Gold medals out of all competitors.

This year, the Parmigiano Reggiano National Team — an association of 96 cheese dairies across provinces in the production area – was the largest ever joint mission abroad promoting an Italian cheese, with 10 more dairies involved than in 2019. This group effort earned the National Team 117 medals: 6 Super Gold(best table cheese), 32 Gold, 43 Silver, 36 Bronze. The Super Gold medals were won by Azienda Agricola Grana D’Oro of Reggio Emilia, Latteria Collina of Reggio Emilia, Caseificio Rosola di Zocca of Modena, Caseificio Punto Latte of Modena, Latteria Sociale La Nuova 2000 of Reggio Emilia, and Caseificio Sociale Canevaccia of Bologna. The seventh Super Gold was awarded to the Consortium Latterie Virgilio, which competed independently of the National Team.

Greenest’ butcher’s shop in Scotland opens with a hope to ‘slice’ emissions

After nearly 40 years of trading in a small corner shop in Fraserburgh, I.J McIntosh Butcher has made the move to a new custom-built ecofriendly premises in a bid to expand and future proof the business.

The new shop, which was opened on Friday 12 November and will stock Scotch Beef, Scotch Lamb and Specially Selected Pork, is a family-run enterprise that has been managed by Gavin McIntosh since 2017.

Investing in equipment, lights, and fans that are low wattage, refrigeration insulation that is low CGC impact and wall cladding that is low CFC impact has resulted in potentially the ‘greenest’ butcher’s shop in Scotland.

“Because it’s a large building – approximately 200m² – we’re in talks with an energy company about putting solar panels on the roof to harness and generate electricity that will not only power the shop, but a future electric vehicle we plan to purchase to make deliveries.

“We continue to source our produce locally and have invested in new machines that use recycled packing. This means that our customers purchase products with low food miles, consciously packaged with a focus on helping the planet,” says Gavin.

Gordon King, Executive Manager of Scottish Craft Butchers, and Tom Gibson, Quality Meat Scotland’s (QMS) Director of Market Development, cut the ribbon to officially open the new store.

Time to inspire farmers to help improve our climate

By Mairi Gougeon

In November 2021, all eyes were on Scotland for COP26 for one of the most important global gatherings of the 21st century. The whole world was thinking about what needs to be done in order to combat climate change and what we need to do going forward.

It was great to be a part of this and while the Glasgow Climate Pact didn’t go as far as we would like there was a lot of positive activity to come from COP26.

At COP26, I was pleased to announce that Scotland has signed up to the 4 per 1000 initiative which aims to boost carbon storage in agricultural soils and reduce the global carbon footprint.

The initiative, a legacy of COP21 in Paris, supports the development and application of techniques to improve the health of agricultural soils, increasing their sustainability and capacity to store carbon. Our announcement created a golden thread between COP21 in Paris and COP26 in Glasgow.

Now that COP is over, the work doesn’t stop there. We need to work together to reach our climate and environment goals.

In the Climate Change Plan update, we committed to launching a new and expanded peer to peer knowledge transfer initiative based on the success of our Young Farming Climate Champions work.

We know there are farmers and crofters who are already doing some fantastic work to help reach these goals. We wanted to create something that would allow them to share their work so that others can take action to mitigate and adapt to climate change, as well as increasing biodiversity.

The Agriculture, Biodiversity and Climate Change Network (ABCCN) aims to inspire farmers and crofters to take greater action by highlighting their peers’ activities in one location online. Once set up, it will be hosted on the Farming for a Better Climate website.

One of the benefits of this network will be that we’re making it inclusive by allowing anyone who is taking action on climate and environment to take part. This will allow us to get advice and support from farmers and crofters in every area of Scotland and help inspire others to take action now.