Food brands should look East for growth

He said: "We need to follow the whisky model. One-quarter of Scotch whisky now goes to Asia-Pacific [region], whereas it's only 7% of our food exports. In value terms this is only slightly more than our exports to Belgium.

"The food and drink export story has been phenomenal, achieving a 50% rise in value, but we need a much more balanced set of markets. We need to show more ambition to move into new markets."

Withers was speaking prior to leaving for Hong Kong, where a delegation of established and rising Scottish brands was debuingt at HOFEX, the Asia-Pacific region's largest food and drink exhibition,

He outlined the strong appeal of Scotland's premium food and drink products, particularly for consumers in China and Japan, where he said they were "a perfect fit for the top end of these markets".

Withers added: "There are 150 cities in China that have a bigger population than the whole of Scotland. Of course, we're never going to feed Asia, but even winning a small corner of these markets would be transformational."