The Bankfoot Inn, by Dunkeld

The Bankfoot is a traditional Scottish inn, promoting real ales from local breweries and single malts from Scottish distilleries. The hotel is listed in CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide 2010.

Owner manager Rab Wallace said: “We have noticed there is a growing consumer demand for quality local produce and an increased awareness of 'green' issues. Serving local beer gives us an increased sense of local identity and we take pride in our customers being able to have a taste of what makes our locality different.

“Our bar meals focus on beef, lamb and venison from the local butcher, and we now see an opportunity in using the toolkit, to build on the provenance of our menus and market them in the same way that we have successfully promoted our ales”.

MacLeod Hotels, Isle of Skye

Three Skye hotels make up the MacLeod Hotels group, where provenance is a key feature of the hotel group’s food marketing strategy in its bar and bistro menus, and the group’s flagship restaurant, Chandlery at The Bosville, focuses firmly on fresh and local.

Executive chef, John Kelly, said: “We weren’t too sure how local food would translate to the more traditional Broadford Hotel, however, food sales in the bar and restaurant increased by 40% over the same period last year. The toolkit is also valuable resource in training waiting staff, so they can provide accurate and knowledgeable answers to customers’ questions about produce origin and provenance.”

The CatStrand, New Galloway

Catstrand, a café venue within a rural arts and visitor centre in New Galloway,  provides light meals of soup, sandwiches and home baking, mostly prepared from locally sourced ingredients.

Rachel Thompson, development manager, said: “We knew from the start we wanted to champion local Galloway producers and fair-trade goods, and so the toolkit came along just at the right time for us.

“We were able to adapt some of the suggested menus to fit with our own ideas, and to check that we were correctly stating the origin of our menu’s main ingredients. It’s turned out to be a great promotional tool as well.”

“Our customers were surveyed on their reaction to food provenance labelling and local sourcing during autumn 2009, and we gathered a range of positive comments. 60% of our customers said this affected their food choices and 100% of customers appreciated the menu declarations and would like to see them in the future. There’s no going back now!”

The Real Food Café, Tyndrum

This fast-food café at the gateway to the Highlands, is where owner Sarah Heward takes great pride in sourcing fresh, local and often organic, sustainable ingredients.

Sarah said: “We may cater for a wide range of customers, but always take our sourcing seriously, and take great pride in listing the source of our ingredients on information boards around the cafe.

For us, the origin of the meat in our burgers is just as important to us, as sourcing fillet of beef for a fine dining restaurant, and we believe this provenance is the cornerstone of our success.”

The Sisters Jordanhill, Glasgow

Jacqueline & Pauline O’Donnell own and run two restaurants, The Sisters, serving their customers a ‘taste of real Scotland in the middle of Glasgow’.

Said Pauline; “we have always been committed to working with Scotland’s larder in sourcing the best suppliers and already made some origin declarations on our website and menus.”

“Always keen to find new ways to celebrate Scotland’s amazing produce, we used the toolkit to develop this further, and then asked our customers what they thought. We were delighted when one of the dishes, Venison with ‘roast Arran beetroot’, sold 20 more than the same menu item without provenance declaration in the previous week!”

Jacqueline added: “Customers told us they appreciated knowing where their food came from, that the additional information affected their choice and that they would like to see more of it. It’s certainly something we plan to build on for the future.”

Fired Art, Fort William

Fired Art, a high street coffee shop, fronts a small craft and arts venue and provides catering services at outdoor functions and festivals.

Café manager, Julie Green said: “Fired Art already had strong links with local food producers, but it wasn’t something we particularly told our customers about. We used the toolkit to launch a revised menu during Scottish Food Fortnight, which gave us a good opportunity to try a different approach. We were delighted to find that menu items with local food origin declarations were responsible for a 10% increase in turnover.”

“The new menu raised awareness of local food with customers, but we also found that staff enjoyed handling new products and learning new processes. Three local suppliers are now a regular feature on our daily specials board and over 50% of our food expenditure now goes to Lochaber businesses”.