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Taste Our Best

Food and drink worth travelling for

Scotland is famed for its natural larder bringing visitors from around the world to experience what’s on offer. Our Taste Our Best Accreditation Scheme celebrates businesses who serve up quality food and drink using locally sourced, seasonal local produce.

Achieving this award can help demonstrate your responsible tourism ethos, showing that you support your local community and that you ‘love local’ – meeting the needs of today’s visitors. The award makes it easy for visitors to find Scottish produce prepared with care and delivered with passion.

Who can take part?

You can sign up to be part of Taste Our Best whether you’re a restaurant, cafe, pub or takeaway.

It’s also an added benefit of being a Quality Assurance member. Hotels, B&Bs, guest houses, exclusive use venues and visitor attractions will be automatically assessed as part of their Quality Assurance visit and won’t need to sign up separately.

Why Taste Our Best?

  • Showcase your excellence

    Being a Taste Our Best business means that you can be easily identified as a provider of high quality, locally sourced food and drink, something that we’ll help support throughout our marketing.

  • Important to visitors

    Food tourism is a key part of the visitor experience, with 66% of our visitors telling us that food is important when choosing a holiday destination. Read our food and drink insights to find out more.

  • Supporting seasonality

    Promoting Scottish produce in season not only meets our visitor preferences. Local food can provide freshness, reduce food miles, and offer benefits to local farmers and communities. That’s not all - seasonal food can be tastier for diners and be more affordable to serve for businesses.

  • Sustainable benefits

    Using seasonal local produce can have a wide range of benefits, contributing to your business’s sustainable practices.  It can help you reach your net zero targets, because reducing the supply chain of your food and drink produce, reduces the carbon footprint of your business.

  • Benchmark your performance

    Our experienced team of Quality and Tourism Advisors (QTA) can help you to find the areas of your business where training or investment can make the biggest difference. Engaging with our experienced team can inform business decisions through tailored insight.

How to apply for Taste our Best

For restaurants, cafes and takeaways

If you’re a food service business like a restaurant, café, pub, or takeaway, and you’re not a member of our Quality Assurance Scheme, please take the following steps to apply.

  1. 1

    What type of business are you?

    Take a look at our Taste Our Best criteria for your type of business, so you are aware of what our team will be looking for when assessing your business. Don’t worry if you’re not sure if you can meet all the requirements, we can chat to you about your specific set-up and offer you guidance that’s right for your business.

    If you have any queries, our team can help and provide advice on what will work best for you. Get in touch with us at [email protected]

    Be sure to check you agree to our Schedule of Conditions, which can be found in full on this page.  

  2. 2

    Sign up and participation fees

    Our annual fees relating to your Taste Our Best membership is based on the type of food business you run. They range from just over £50 for a takeaway to just over £125 for a restaurant or bar.

    Sign up for the Taste Our Best accreditation. 

    Find out more about our Taste Our Best membership fees in the following download.

    VisitScotland 2022/23 QA fees

    Published March 2022

    QA fees for the current scheme year

  3. 3

    Welcome aboard

    Once you’ve signed up, you’ll receive a welcome call from our Quality Assurance team to talk through the process of how your first live grading visit will work before we see you in person. 

  4. 4

    The visit

    We will come and eat at your establishment as a regular diner would, taking the form of an incognito visit. 

    At a time convenient to you, our Quality and Tourism Advisor will offer their expert advice and feedback specific to your business, and let you know if you have been successful in achieving the Taste our Best award.

    This is a valuable opportunity to gain insights and tailored one-to-one advice about the visitor journey your business is offering.

  5. 5

    Your award

    Following your Taste Our Best assessment visit you will receive confirmation of your award by email, along with a detailed report containing tailored advice and guidance. 

    You will also be provided with an award certificate and electronic logos so that you can shout about your new Taste Our Best Award.