Scotland’s food and drink industry is moving faster than the Friday night rush for Aunt Maggie’s spam fritters.
Latest figures show the nation’s annual food and drink turnover reaching record levels – it’s predicted to hit £16.5 bn by 2017 – and the food manufacturing sector growing at twice the rate of the UK average.
A pioneer among the 18,850 food and drink businesses in Scotland is Yasmin McDonagh, founder of Scotia Spice, which produces Punjabi curry kits.
When she’s not rustling up a spicy aloo tikki, or running her cookery school, she’s polishing her Curry Queen 2016 crown, picked up at the Scottish Curry Awards.
We went to meet Yasmin to find out her recipe for success.
Tell us about your business?
It all started with my cookery school. I take no more than three people at any one time into my own kitchen. We taste spices then everyone cooks up the dishes themselves with my guidance.
I came up with idea of putting spices together with my family recipes and our Punjabi curry kits were born.
Was it always going to be about working with food?
Not to start with. In fact, I originally worked in financial services as a pension specialist! I’ve always been a foodie though.
What challenges have you faced in setting up your manufacturing business?
The biggest challenges came when we decided to develop the kits. I had no retail, marketing or production background so the learning curve was, and still is, steep!
On an ongoing basis, building name awareness is a constant challenge.
It’s a very noisy world out there these days with more and more products available all the time.
How does it feel to be part of this successful sector?
It’s a good time to be working in the Scottish food and drink industry. It’s a very dynamic sector with lots of exciting new businesses.
The support network from other businesses has been so valuable.
What’s the most rewarding part?
I feel very privileged to pass on my family heritage through my food. Receiving feedback from people who regularly cook curries for themselves now because they’ve used one of our boxes or been on a course is a great feeling.
I talk food pretty much non-stop all day and I meet other people in the industry who make some of the best food I’ve ever tasted!
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