Phase two of 'shelfwatch', the largest ever survey of food being offered on Scottish supermarket shelves, has continued to find a mixed picture of support for local farmers.
NFU Scotland started the initiative in January, with an aim to shine a light on how and where Scottish produce is being made available to buy.
For phase one, an independent research firm visited 71 stores across Scotland, looking at own-label beef, lamb, pork, chicken, eggs, vegetables and dairy.
It revealed a completely mixed bag of what is going on in shops across the country and available to Scotland’s consumers.
Phase two has continued to conclude a mixed picture of support, but it found that Aldi remained the strongest supporter of Scottish goods available to consumers (45%) and were top in 12 of 15 categories.
In the second phase, an independent research firm visited 73 stores across mainland Scotland over a 48-hour period in late May.
Researchers looked primarily at food on offer in Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Co-Op, Marks and Spencer, Lidl and Aldi stores.
In total, across all retailers, there was only a modest increase in the availability of Scottish own label produce from January, NFU Scotland said.
Co-op improved from fourth to second (27.6%), while Lidl (27%) fell from second to third and Morrisons dropped from third to fourth (19.2%).
At the other end of the table, Sainsburys remained the lowest supporter of Scottish own label produce (9.7%).
Tesco improved from seventh to sixth (13.1%), Asda fell from sixth to seventh (11.5 %) and Marks and Spencer remained fifth (18.7%).
The survey found strong support for Scottish from the retailers in categories such as eggs and fresh milk.
However, NFU Scotland said there are opportunities for some retailers to do more in categories such as pork, lamb and chicken, and for all across the wider dairy sector.
In terms of retailers’ commitment to British produce, Marks and Spencer came out on top with 85% of products labelled as British or Scottish.
Finally, on labelling, assessors picked up on some unclear labelling on bacon involving the mixing of UK and EU produce.
NFU Scotland president Martin Kennedy said the second part of shelfwatch only found a modest increase in the amount of Scottish food on shelves.
“The first shelfwatch project in January gave us a useful baseline. It allowed us to understand the differences between product types, where Scottish produce is to the fore and where there is dominance from produce from elsewhere.
“The second of four ShelfWatch surveys to be carried out within the 12 month period has found only a modest increase in the availability of Scottish branded products
"This now gives us a solid platform for more detailed discussions with retailers and policy makers which we will now embark in order to try and affect positive change."
Mr Kennedy said part of that dialogue will be on transparent labelling. "The ability for a staple product to carry confusing labelling on whether it is of UK or EU origin underlines our previous calls for labelling reform," he said.
