The Scottish food and drink industry is laying down the gauntlet with plans to nurture the nation’s brewing sector into a £1 billion industry by 2030.

The calls have put out this week by Scotland Food and Drink with the aim of making Scottish brewed beer “most desirable in the world”.

This follows the findings of a year-long study carried out by the Brewing Industry Leadership Group, a new body commissioned by Scotland Food & Drink to identify the challenges of growing the Scottish brewing sector and supply chain.

“Scotland now has over 130 operating breweries supporting over 8,000 jobs,” said Hilary Jones, chair of the Brewing Industry Leadership Group.

She added: “We want Scottish brewing to grow into a £1 billion industry by 2030, creating new jobs in urban and rural areas. We want to increase the perceived value of our beer by focussing on craftmanship and quality. We want consumers to buy Scottish beer, rather than imported beer and to drink beer responsibly.

“We also want to plug into the new food and drink tourism strategy and improve our brewing destination experiences, educating our visitors and sending an international message that we are a high-quality brewing nation.”

To that end, the Group’s report – ‘Brewing Up A Storm’ – has outlined 16 recommendations which will be implemented to achieve this ambitious target.

These include fill the skills gap; promoting brewing as a career choice; helping Scottish brewers reach new markets; and develop new policy and regulations to make Scotland a great place to brew and buy beer.

“This strategy is important because it is the first time that our fantastic brewing industry has united to deliver a growth plan for the future,” said James Withers, CEO of Scotland Food & Drink.

“Working with many partner agencies with a common purpose means that we have a strong chance of success and this, in turn, will feed into our ambition for the Scottish food and drink sector to be worth over £30 billion a year by 2030.”