Press release -
Skye’s Spoons Celebrate Double Success
Luxury Skye bed and breakfast The Spoons is celebrating after being awarded a five star gold award and Taste Our Best accreditation by VisitScotland.
Taste Our Best is a joint initiative between VisitScotland and the Scottish Government. Launched in 2013, the scheme is designed to recognise businesses including hotels, restaurants, cafes, takeaways, visitor attractions and B&Bs that not only offer a quality food and drink experience, but include and promote Scottish produce on their menus, to give consumers choice.
The accolade is particularly fitting as Scotland prepares for the Year of Food and Drink in 2015. The focus year will celebrate Scotland’s outstanding natural larder with a particular emphasis on local and seasonal produce.
The Spoons, situated on a working croft in North Skye on Loch Snizort, boasts three individually designed en-suite bedrooms and an open plan guest dining and living room.
Food plays a particularly important role at the bed and breakfast, with an emphasis on fresh, local, seasonal and, where possible, organic produce. Local produce includes Iron Age pork sausages and bacon from Orbost Farm, foraged wild mushrooms from Wild Skye and organic oatmeal from Golspie Mill. Nearby Glendale Salads also provide rhubarb, edible flowers and potatoes for the tattie scones.
The Spoons is also proud to serve its own honey and chicken and duck eggs from their croft, as well as homemade marmalade, granola and cakes.
Marie Lewis, from The Spoons, said:
“We are delighted to have been awarded five gold stars and Taste Our Best and it's lovely to get the recognition from VisitScotland. We will continue to enjoy welcoming our guests, returning and new, offering them a special experience on the beautiful Isle of Skye.”
Scott Armstrong, Regional Director at VisitScotland, said:
“I would like to congratulate The Spoons on obtaining their exceptionally well-deserved gold five star and Taste Our Best awards.
“This is an establishment that can truly pride themselves on every element of their visitor experience, especially their amazing culinary offer which celebrates the best of local produce.
“We know that visitors love authentic, quality Scottish food and drink and Taste Our Best is all about taking this knowledge to the next level and really encouraging the tourism industry and businesses to recognise the real benefits of sourcing, using and promoting local and Scottish produce. We have such a rich natural larder here in the Highlands, with some of the best products in the world right on our doorstep.
“2015 is the Year of Scotland’s Food and Drink and we hope that all the visitors to our shores this year who are experiencing the range of truly global events across the country will also get to taste the best of Scotland.”
Funded by the Scottish Government (£450K over three years) and VisitScotland (£470K in kind) with support from Scotland Food and Drink, the Taste Our Best initiative brings together the tourism and food and drink industries.
Research has shown that visitors are willing to pay up to 15% more for food that is of Scottish or regional origin and businesses that provide local food can typically enjoy higher level sales of up to 20% per year. Visitors currently spend around £800 million per year on food and drink in Scotland and more than 70% of potential visitors to Scotland want to taste traditional dishes, regional specialties and fresh local produce.
The Taste Our Best scheme is the latest addition to VisitScotland’s Quality Assurance (QA) Schemes, which aim to drive up quality in tourism products across the country. Taste Our Best will provide businesses with an assessment of their food provision and their menu by qualified assessors, with those meeting the necessary criteria gaining the award.
For accommodation providers and visitor attractions, the assessment will take place at the same time as the main VisitScotland Quality Assurance grading, meaning that many tourism businesses that already participate in the QA Scheme will no longer have to apply and pay for a separate food and drink assessment.
Taste Our Best replaced the EatScotland food and drink QA scheme, which is being phased out.
Further details on Taste Our Best can be found at: www.visitscotland.org/quality-foodanddrink.aspx
More details on The Spoons can be found at: http://www.thespoonsonskye.com/
Caption: An example from the Spoons’ breakfast menu, including tattie scones.
Topics
- Tourism
Categories
- corporate communications
Regions
- Scotland
Notes to Editors:
- Follow us on twitter: @visitscotnews
- VisitScotland is Scotland’s national tourism organisation. Its core purpose is to maximise the economic benefit of tourism to Scotland.
- The organisation has three key roles:
- To market Scotland to all parts of the world to attract visitors
- To provide information – and inspiration – to visitors and potential visitors so they get the best out of a visit to Scotland
- To provide quality assurance to visitors and quality advice to the industry and partners to help the industry meet and strive to exceed customer expectations
- VisitScotland works together with tourism businesses to make tourism a success for everyone and ensure the industry continues to grow.
- The organisation employs 700 people and has offices and VisitScotland Information Centres across Scotland.
- 2014 is the year Scotland welcomes the world, when it hosts the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles and more than 800 Homecoming events throughout the country.For more information on Homecoming Scotland 2014, go to www.visitscotland.com
- The VisitScotland Information Centre network is a unique face-to-face channel engaging with around five million visitors and locals each year. Everyone who uses a VisitScotland Information Centre goes on to spend an additional £5.35, generating over £24 million for Scotland’s economy.
- According to a recent Deloitte study, tourism employs 270,000 people in Scotland in 20,000 diverse businesses. The same study calculates that the industry contributes £11 billion annually (direct and indirect impact, including day visits) and supports around 10 per cent of employment in Scotland. Almost 16 million tourists take overnight trips to Scotland.
- Where possible, a Gaelic speaker will be made available for broadcast interviews on request (Far an tèid iarraidh, agus far am bheil sin nar comas, bruidhinnidh neach le Gàidhlig aig agallamh)
- For holiday information on Scotland go to www.visitscotland.com
- For information about business tourism in Scotland go to www.conventionscotland.com
- For more information on VisitScotland’s annual review please go to www.visitscotland.org/about_us/our_focus/annual_report.aspx
