This project is reviewing the costs and opportunities for five Scottish food product types with higher value status. For each type of food, three pieces of research are conducted. First, interviews with producers and other experts to build understanding of their views on issues affecting the sector. Secondly, estimation of trade-offs between price premiums and production costs. Thirdly, a survey of consumers' willingness to pay for higher value Scottish products of the type under investigation.

In year 3 (2024-25), we completed our work on Scottish farmed salmon and discussed the findings with stakeholders. We produced a ‘toolkit’ for the sector, which has been published on the SEFARI website (details below). 

We started work on Scottish cheese, with special reference to cheddar. We reviewed published work on the sector (more than 1,100 items were identified) and produced a policy briefing for stakeholders (details below). We conducted in-depth interviews with people working in the sector, to build understanding of the issues it faces. This study has been written up and will form part of the sector 'toolkit' to be published in year 4 (2025-26). 

We formulated a dairy model of supply and demand where one of the processing products is cheese. This models the supply of milk and the production of several dairy products using information from the Economic Report on Scottish Agriculture and the Scottish dairy utilisation survey. The model has been used to produce a simulation of the effects of increases of demand and production costs. This analysis, focusing on cheese, will form part of the sector 'toolkit' to be published in year 4 (2025-26).

We developed and implemented a survey-based choice experiment exploring consumers' willingness to pay for higher value Scottish cheeses. This asked participants to state their preference for particular cheese products and their attributes, with responses being used to determine whether participants’ preferences are significantly influenced by the different attributes and to determine the relative importance of each attribute. The analysis of the data will form part of the sector 'toolkit' to be published in year 4 (2025-26).

We continued to engage with project stakeholders, who helped to guide our choice of product groups to study, informed the conduct of our research and commented on our preliminary findings. We provided an update on the research at Scottish Government Policy Engagement Meetings in June 2024 and March 2025. A project Steering Group meeting was held in September 2024 to discuss results from the farmed salmon research and to check that the direction of the project remained relevant. More detailed knowledge exchange with stakeholders took place in early 2025, resulting in the selection of wild venison as the penultimate product type to be studied (in 2025-26).

We published a 'toolkit' on the SEFARI website containing key insights from our research on Scottish farmed salmon, as an aid to the sector:

•              An analysis of Scottish Salmon’s price premium 

•              Adding value to Scottish salmon: role of ecolabels and nutritional claims

•              Adding value to Scottish salmon – what’s in a name?

We wrote a summary review of the literature on cheese as a policy briefing for the Scottish Government and project stakeholders.    

The aim of this research is to review the costs and opportunities for Scottish products with higher value status. Its objectives are to quantify trade-offs between price premiums and production costs for such products, to generate new insights into how product values manifest themselves, and to share both with producers and other stakeholders. In 2023-24, work was conducted on two products, Specially Selected Pork and farmed salmon, which were chosen based on discussions with project stakeholders.

We maintained regular engagement with stakeholders. A project Steering Group meeting was held in September 2023 to discuss preliminary results from our study of Specially Selected Pork and to check that the direction of the research remained relevant. More detailed knowledge exchange took place in November with stakeholders who have a special interest in the salmon sector, to inform our research on farmed salmon.

Our work on Specially Selected Pork was completed. We published our main findings in three case studies for the sector and policy-makers: a narrative account of the challenges facing a diversified pig farmer; an examination of consumers' willingness to pay for higher value pork; and a trade-off analysis model for the pig to pork supply chain in Scotland. Links to these case studies are below, under ‘outputs’.

We began research into Scotland's farmed salmon sector. This work, which follows the same pattern as that for Specially Selected Pork, has four parts.

1. We wrote a review of published work on the salmon sector (about 980 items were identified), which is listed under ‘outputs’.
2. We conducted in-depth interviews with people working in the sector, to build understanding of the issues it is facing currently.
3. We constructed a database of the quantities of and prices for farmed salmon and other fish, using data provided by industry and extracted from Kantar Worldpanel.
4. We designed a survey-based choice experiment to investigate consumers’ willingness to pay for higher value Scottish salmon products. The choice experiment asked individuals to state their preference for particular products and their attributes (e.g. organic). People's survey responses are used to determine whether their preferences are significantly influenced by the different attributes and to determine the relative importance of each attribute.

We completed data collection for parts 2 – 4. Analysis, write-up and dissemination of results will start in 2024-25.

Outputs

Case studies

Challenges facing a Scottish pig farmer

Consumers’ willingness to pay for Specially Selected Pork

Trade-off analysis model for the pig to pork supply chain

Peer-reviewed journal paper

 ‘Consumption of foods with the highest nutritional quality, and the lowest greenhouse gas emissions and price, differs between socio-economic groups in the UK population’, (2023) a paper published in Public Health Nutrition by Aceves-Martins et al.

Talk

F Akaichi, J Waterworth and L Toma, ‘UK consumers’ WTP [willingness to pay] for Scottish produce and the role that sustainability-related claims can play in promoting its demand’, Annual Congress the Agricultural Economics Society, Edinburgh, March 2024.

Reports

R Slater and D Watts (2023) Costs and opportunities for Scottish products with higher value status: Pork Producers.

R Slater and D Watts (2024) A systematic literature review on costs and opportunities for Scottish salmon products with higher value status.

An important part of this research is that it learns from, and is relevant to, people involved in producing and developing policy for Scottish products with higher value status. Thus, an early priority was to assemble a ‘steering group’ of potential research users to inform the design and conduct of the work. Our ‘steering group’ met in in Edinburgh (and online) in September 2022 to discuss research aims, methods and the choice of food and drink products to study. ‘Steering group’ members suggested alternative products for study and rearranging the order of those studied. There has also been productive engagement with members of the ‘steering group’ concerning data and variables for use in our analyses.

To expand the information gathered from the ‘steering group’, we conducted a systematic review of international studies of higher value food products, with particular reference to: products that will form our case studies; quantifying their impact and value for money; and assessing their relevance to Scottish industry and consumers. This review identified 14,393 published items, across 72 databases, which were screened for relevance by two researchers working independently. After reconciliation, 96 publications were reviewed.

Time-series consumption data for higher value food and drink products were extracted from the Kantar Worldpanel database and analysed. In addition, a database was built containing extracted quantities and prices for our first case study, pork products. These formed the basis of a trade-off analysis model which we developed for the pig to pork supply chain in Scotland. This model can be used to approximate the impact of changes in variables such as input or output prices on the level of Scottish pork production.

The findings from the systematic review and database analysis fed into the design of the topic guide used in interviews with key informants for higher-value pork products. 

During Years 1 and 2 we also conducted choice experiments on UK consumers' willingness to pay for higher value Scottish pork products. Click here to read our summary report. 

Case Studies

Making silk purses out of sow's ears - challenges facing a Scottish pig farmer

Consumers’ willingness to pay for Specially Selected Pork

Publications and other outputs

• Conference paper “Rural development, local food and its marketing” by Cesar Revoredo-Giha, read at the RuralIdea Festival, Ceprano, Italy, 29 June 2022.

Presentations, reports, posters

• Poster: “Costs and opportunities for Scottish products with higher value status” presented at RESAS Strategic Research Programme Topic B5 End-of-Year meeting, Edinburgh, 17 March 2023.
• Report: “Costs and opportunities for Scottish products with higher value status: systematic literature review”.
• Report: “Costs and opportunities for Scottish products with higher value status: pork producers”.