Scottish Wholesale Association has welcomed the First Minister’s announcement that food and drink wholesalers will get access to the £8 million supply chain funding from the Scottish Government’s £100 million Omicron business support package.

With the arrival of the Omicron variant and the Scottish Government’s advice that people should defer Christmas parties, there has been an immediate and devastating impact on businesses still struggling to recover.

Colin Smith, SWA chief executive, said that support for wholesale is likely to build on the Scottish Wholesale Food and Drink Resilience Fund established by the Scottish Government this time last year to help wholesalers affected by coronavirus restrictions.

This specially commissioned report by SWA shows that almost three-quarters of Scottish consumers agreed they are concerned about environmental and sustainability issues and unsurprisingly a similar proportion say they are more concerned now than they were three years ago.

Sustainability already influences where consumers shop for groceries – 38% of Scots agree with this statement and this is going to rise in importance as 50% of those asked said it will influence where they shop more in the future.