Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Tesco Executive Director, Corporate & Legal Affairs
Tesco is delighted to support the Scottish Retailers Forum.
We are strongly committed to food and farming in Scotland. We have more than 150 Scottish suppliers delivering over 1,500 products - involving farmers, growers, creameries and distilleries across Scotland. We are excited about being part of the rich diversity of Scottish products. For example our Scottish brewers supply over 52 different beers. We have also established a direct relationship with our milk suppliers, paying at the top end of the market.
Our Scottish customers tell us they want to support their communities. In response, we were the first supermarket to establish a dedicated Scottish sourcing office, with buying, marketing and technical expertise. Our Scottish buying office has built links with local suppliers up and down the country and is now responsible for over £2bn of sales of Scottish products across the UK.
We are committed to providing clear labelling, highlighting products' Scottish provenance, as well as to extending country of origin labelling to all meat products.
We are also keen to showcase Scottish food and drink. Our annual 'Enjoy the Taste of Scotland' event is now Scotland's largest dedicated Food and Drink show. Our "Scotland's Favourites" event is a two week campaign to promote popular Scottish products in all our Scottish stores.
We are committed to making a wider contribution too, for example on the environment and in contributing to the Scottish economy.
We are leading the way on issues like climate change. Our flagship environmental store in Dumfries has reduced carbon emissions by 70 per cent compared to an equivalent store built in 2006. Our customers have used 312 million fewer carrier bags since 2006 and we have taken thousands of trucks off the A9 by moving freight by rail.
We are proud to be Scotland's largest private sector employer with nearly 30,000 staff and 140 stores. We are investing across Scotland, with operations such as our Customer Service Centre in Dundee, Livingston Distribution Centre and Tesco Personal Finance Edinburgh headquarters. This year we will create 1,500 new jobs in Scotland