The next item on the agenda is the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs, entitled, ‘Update on “Towards Sustainable Growth: An Action Plan for the Food and Drink Industry 2014-2020”’. I call on Cabinet Secretary Lesley Griffiths to move the statement.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer.

The food and drink action plan delivers our food strategy in Wales. Published well in advance of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, it is delivering on all seven of the well-being goals. The plan’s 48 actions encompass five priorities, including a leadership board of industry and sector leads; strong provenance for Wales’s food and drink; more training, upskilling and innovation; sustainable growth for businesses and trade; and a focus on food safety and security. The Food and Drink Wales industry board, under the chairmanship of Andy Richardson, is taking forward work streams including business and investment, customers and markets, and people and skills. This work will inform me of the further actions needed for continued growth.

Food sector growth contributes to the goal of a prosperous Wales. This is a highly significant industry in the Welsh economy. The farm-to-fork food chain has a turnover in excess of £15.5 billion and employs over 220,000 people and is Wales’s biggest employer. The action plan sets an ambitious target to grow the turnover of the food and farming sector by 30 per cent to £7 billion annually and to achieve this by 2020. Two years on and growth has exceeded expectations at 17 per cent to £6.1 billion and is already more than half way towards the 2020 target.

So, what does this growth look like? In 2014-15, our growth programme contributed directly to over £10 million in sales growth and the creation of 550 jobs. Business support includes the Wales-Ireland, European-funded clusters programme, supported by Ifor Ffowcs-Williams, the EU head of analysis and clusters. This programme has already engaged nearly half of the food manufacturers in Wales. Current clusters include premium products, high-growth businesses, innovation in healthier nutritional products, and a seafood-specific cluster.

I am also pleased to announce that we will be launching an export cluster later this year. Further development of export markets will continue to be essential in striving towards the plan’s vision. The industry generates over £260 million from exports, with almost 90 per cent to the European Union. This is an increase of over 102 per cent since 2005.

In the past year, our export and trade events programmes helped Welsh businesses deliver over £7 million of new sales, and over £15 million of prospects are being developed. The support we offer food manufacturers includes bespoke advice, showcasing, assistance to attend trade events, dedicated export missions to target markets, and facilitated business meetings. Businesses in other parts of the UK are now looking at Wales as an exemplar of best practice.

Foreign direct investment is an important contributor to growth. We are targeted in our approach, as FDI requires relationship building over time. A notable success in recent times is Calbee, the Japanese snack food manufacturer established in Deeside in 2015, which created up to 100 jobs. Calbee is exactly the sort of company we are pleased to help. It is innovative; producing healthy, vegetable-based snacks to meet the increasing demand from consumers for snacking.

The food industry has a responsibility towards achieving a healthier Wales. Diet and nutrition are major determinants of lifespan and quality of life. Our food-for-the-future conference emphasised the shared responsibility throughout the food chain to support healthier eating. Manufacturers must look to product reformulation while retailers and food service must provide clear and informative labelling and encourage the healthy choices.

We work with the National Procurement Service through its food category forum to factor healthy eating criteria into the tendering process. Seventy-three public bodies are now committed to using NPS in areas of common and repeatable expenditure. I will continue to sponsor Food Innovation Wales, which provides research and development facilities and expertise for food manufacturers, including the manufacture of healthier products. In the past year, £12 million of additional growth in Welsh businesses resulted from new product and process development.

Food poverty can be due to lack of affordability or limited access to enable healthy choices. We support many initiatives to tackle food poverty—some well established such as community growing and community food co-operatives. The new food poverty alliance is a coming together of public, private and third sector organisations and is taking forward work to address holiday hunger in schoolchildren, which was piloted by Food Cardiff last year. The alliance will also investigate how to improve the uptake of free school meals and will work with retailers to partner them in tackling food poverty initiatives.

We are providing significant support to food businesses to enable them to be globally responsible. The Resource Efficient Wales service helps businesses achieve efficiencies in water and energy use and achieve more effective waste management. We are signatories to Courtauld 2025, which is an ambitious voluntary agreement that brings together organisations and businesses across the food system to cut waste and greenhouse gas emissions associated with food and drink by at least one fifth by 2025. We are encouraging businesses to become signatories. Global responsibility extends to the design of our grant schemes. The food business investment scheme includes sustainability measures in its application screening process. The first round has identified £197 million of investment and potentially 1,333 new job opportunities.

The food industry’s contribution to cohesive communities is readily apparent in our support for food festivals. An independent evaluation in 2015 reported that, collectively, they are estimated to support 417 jobs within the Welsh economy and bring in a net additional £25 million per annum through trading, but also through business generated in the local economies surrounding festivals.

Food security and food safety are priorities in the plan and are paramount towards achieving a resilient Wales. We work closely with the Food Standards Agency to improve food safety. The food hygiene ratings scheme has proved a tremendous success in raising standards in catering establishments and is an exemplar for other nations. The resilience of the Welsh food and drink industry is private sector dominated and well-developed contingency plans are in place. Food is one of the critical sectors represented on our internal resilience steering group. We participate in the global food security programme and in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’s food chain emergency liaison group, which assesses risks to food supply and mitigates threats.

Food events are a great vehicle to promote our vibrant culture and thriving Welsh language. The Food and Drink Wales identity is now well recognised internationally and is widely respected. We launched our website last year to communicate and inform industry, stakeholders and the public about our Wales food nation and have recorded over 5,000 page views and 1,500 Twitter followers. We are actively working with many quality Welsh producers to secure many more protected food name products and Wales is becoming synonymous with a rich food heritage.

Deputy Presiding Officer, I have presented a snapshot today of the achievements of the food and drink action plan. The plan is about so much more than food; it is about delivering on our promises to future generations.

Thank you. I call the Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Simon Thomas.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’d like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement. I feel confident in responding to this statement, because this is a sector of the economy where I make the biggest personal contribution, namely food and drink. I look forward very much to celebrating with the National Farmers Union tomorrow in this Assembly—we’ll be celebrating Welsh food—and we’ll be celebrating Welsh drink with the Campaign for Real Ale later in the evening. So, I’m very pleased to see that this sector, which has grown, as the Minister has said in her statement, over the past two years, continues to develop and continues to develop apace.

May I start, therefore, with a question on this statement and its relevance to our membership of the European Union? We are all aware, of course, that things such as PGI for Welsh lamb assists in promoting that particular product, and, of course, over 90 per cent of Welsh meat and dairy products that are exported are actually exported to the European Union, which shows me that this is a crucially important aspect as to why we should remain members of the European Union. I’d like to ask the Secretary what assessment has been made of the importance of membership of the European Union and growth in this sector. If I could just ask her one specific question that perhaps she won’t be able to answer today, but if she could look at what’s happened to the 'Carmarthen ham' application for PGI status, because I do understand that that bid is still hanging, like the 'Carmarthen ham' itself, and we do need to make some progress in order to improve things there.

If I could turn to the second issue that I wanted to raise with the Cabinet Secretary, namely what we are doing on food waste, the Cabinet Secretary mentioned the Courtauld agreement of 2025 and this is a commitment that places no duties whatsoever in terms of reducing food waste in terms of businesses and the food production sector. I’m very disappointed that the Westminster Government hasn’t legislated, as our colleagues in France have, in order to limit food waste and also to ensure that the over 1 million tonnes of food wasted every year, which is appropriate for human consumption, is referred to the people who need that food. In the world in which we all live, where our communities are full of food banks, it is a disgrace that we continue to waste so much food. Whilst I accept that the Welsh Government only has the option to be part of Courtauld 2025, I would like to hear from the Cabinet Secretary that this Government is eager to legislate, as they’ve done in France, to actually place a duty on major food traders and producers to reduce food waste, to recycle food waste and also to give any food suitable for human consumption to those people who need it.

Whilst we are talking of people who are going hungry, may I refer now to another section of the statement—the section on healthy eating? It is disappointing to learn that eating fresh fruit and vegetables according to the guidance, in terms of having five a day—although I think that may have gone up to seven a day according to some now—. It is disappointing that we continue to struggle to reach even that five-a-day target in Wales, and we’ve reduced from 36 per cent of the population to 32 per cent of the population achieving it. So, we’re moving backwards in terms of encouraging people to eat more healthily, and that relates back, of course, to the statement that we heard from the health Secretary a little earlier.

Plaid Cymru, during the last campaign, had proposed that it would be possible to provide fruit bowls free of charge—to put free fruit bowls in every school and every classroom in Wales. Do you think that that is a good idea and can that be achieved, particularly using fresh fruit from Wales? We have wonderful strawberries at the moment. We will also have lovely pears and apples from Wales, and they could be provided within our schools.

The other area that I do want to turn to briefly is food security. You mentioned this in your statement. The latest figures demonstrate that only 46 per cent of food eaten in Britain is actually produced here, and we have fallen back significantly in terms of local food production within Wales and within Britain. Now, some would argue that, in a single market and a globalised world, the importation of food is going to play an important part. I do accept that, of course, but I would like to hear that it is the Government’s aim to increase the amount of food that is produced in Wales and that is consumed in Wales, and that that is a positive objective for our farmers, for our environment and also for healthy eating. I was very disappointed to hear the leader of UKIP earlier, in asking a question of the First Minister, suggesting that it may be possible to move away entirely from providing support to Welsh farmers and to import food cheaply, rather than producing our own healthy produce that is also good for the environment here in Wales.

The final point that I want to raise, Deputy Presiding Officer—thank you for your patience—is one on how we use food to present a positive image of our nation. We know that football has been doing that very successfully recently, but I also think that food has a very important role to play here.

May I ask you, are you of the opinion, as the Minister responsible for this area, that we sufficiently celebrate the excellent food and drink that we have here in Wales? You mentioned a new identity for Welsh food and drink, and I don’t think that that’s really taken hold. When Joe Ledley’s beard has more followers on Twitter than Welsh food has, then I think there’s a lot more work to be done to promote this and to celebrate Welsh produce. There are—I’m sure you’ll be part of them, Minister—hundreds of food fairs and events happening the length and breadth of Wales over the next few months. I look forward to going to the seafood fair in Aberaeron, in Milford Haven, in Lampeter—there are festivals in all parts of Wales. But are we really actually bringing these together with our farmers’ markets, and are you content with the way that we market Welsh food within Wales and outwith Wales? There is some work to be done here. We lost a very strong brand in the past and I don’t think we’ve regained that ground, as of yet.

I thank Simon Thomas for his questions and comments. I’m glad to see your jokes haven’t improved since last week’s oral statement, but I do look forward to celebrating both the NFU and CAMRA events to be held here tomorrow. Just in relation to Carmarthen ham, I’m expecting several items of food to receive the PGI later this year. I can’t give you a definitive date but I’m very hopeful it will be later this year.

In relation to the EU, clearly work has had to be done ahead of Thursday’s vote but I’m personally very confident that we won’t have to look that way later on. But we know that if we did have Brexit it would have a massive impact on the food and drink industry. The single market is the world’s biggest free trade area in GDP terms and is the UK’s and Wales’s largest trading partner. We know that businesses in the EU enjoy a home market of just over 500 million people, and that’s got the ability to sell goods and services without tariffs or other trade restrictions and with common safety standards. And, as you stated, it is the largest market for Welsh exports. So, we know what damage that would do to the Welsh food and drink sector.

You mentioned Courtauld 2025 and your disappointment that the UK Government hadn’t legislated in this area like France, and I’m very keen to have a look at what France has done. I think it’s very important that we do everything we can to reduce the environmental impact with food businesses and also food waste. Some research that was published earlier this year showed that 1.9 million tonnes of food is wasted in the UK grocery supply chain every year. That’s a huge amount. Fortunately, from that about 47,000 tonnes is redistributed to people who need it, and that equates to about 90 million meals a year. But I’m very keen to do what we can to reduce that wastage, and I met with the FSA this morning where, I think, one aspect where we could improve things is I think people get very confused with best-by date and use-by date and sell-by date—you know, we have all these different things on food and I think it’s really important that people understand what all these different things mean.

You raised an issue around healthy eating and, certainly, when I was listening to the Cabinet Secretary for health’s statement several things came up where you can see the crossover to my portfolio around obesity and, you’re quite right, we should be doing all we can to encourage people to eat at least five a day. Your suggestion around fruit bowls in schools sounds eminently sensible and I suppose, like everything, it’s probably down to cost. But I’d be very happy to have a discussion with the Cabinet Secretary for Education in relation to that.

You talked about food security and there are increasing global pressures on food supply, but I believe that Wales is very well placed to respond to challenges of changing climate, for instance. I think the livestock industry in Wales dominates as the geography and climate of Wales is very well suited to grass-based systems and the sustainable management of our natural resources is critical to the future success of our economy and creating a future for all our communities.

I think football, actually, will have an impact on the Welsh food sector. We are seeing Wales on a stage that perhaps many people won’t have seen Wales on before, with the football, and more people will know where Wales is, and we can only build on that. So, I think it would be a really good opportunity over the next couple of months. As you say, we’ll have lots of summer shows and festivals, and I’m sure our paths will cross at many of them, but I think it’s a really good opportunity. We can always do more to celebrate. I do think we do a great deal to celebrate our wonderful food and drink sector, but, of course, we can always do more, and I’m very keen to do so.

Okay, thank you. Conservative spokesperson, Paul Davies.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement today and wish her all the best in her new role? I look forward to working with her constructively wherever I can to help make our rural communities more prosperous and sustainable in the future. Like the Member for Mid and West Wales, I too probably make a significant contribution to this sector—perhaps too much.

In relation to the action plan for the food and drink industry, whilst I very much accept that there has been some progress, there is still plenty of work to be done with regard to the procurement of Welsh food and drink for public sector contracts. I appreciate that, last year, the National Procurement Service brought the procurement of food within its scope and that 73 public bodies are now committed to using the National Procurement Service. However, can the Cabinet Secretary be more specific and tell us how the Welsh Government is ensuring that there are robust supplier selection procedures in place for food contracts across Wales so that Welsh farmers and food producers don’t miss out on these very important contracts?

A key area of this action plan is in relation to education, training and skills for the food and drink sector, and that is something that I very much welcome. I’m pleased to see from last year’s update that the Welsh baccalaureate has been reviewed to include food and drink modules, and I’d welcome an update on that progress. However, I believe that more needs to be done at a younger level to teach children and young people about where their food comes from. The Cabinet Secretary touched earlier on promoting healthy eating generally, so can she tell us what discussions she’s had with her colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Education about raising the profile of food and agriculture within the education system, perhaps through the curriculum or through voluntary schemes and work placements?

In the summary of responses to this action plan, there were concerns expressed about the difficulty in understanding what training is available and how to access it. In particular, respondents felt that the Government was not joined up in its approach, particularly with the Department for Education and Skills and also with partner bodies, including sector skills councils. In light of this, perhaps the Cabinet Secretary can tell us what specific improvements have been made since the launch of the action plan in relation to these specific concerns.

If we want our food and drink industry to flourish then the development of a skilled workforce is crucial, and the Welsh Government must build stronger links with businesses and education providers to meet the skills gap in the industry. I’d be grateful if the Cabinet Secretary would commit to perhaps publishing job creation statistics and employment opportunity figures with each annual update so that Members can actually scrutinise the Welsh Government’s action in this particular area.

I appreciate that there is a separate food tourism action plan for Wales 2015-20, and I fully support the importance of food tourism in Wales and the need for a separate strategy. However, can the Cabinet Secretary tell us how she’s ensuring that other strategies, like the food tourism action plan and the food procurement strategy, are actually co-ordinated with other Welsh Government policies and that they are actually joined up?

As the Member for Mid and West Wales said earlier, food festivals play an important role in promoting our food and drink industry, so it’s important that they get as much support as possible. It’s been suggested to me that the money each food festival receives from the Welsh Government is capped at a certain figure. Could the Cabinet Secretary confirm whether this is the case? Surely funds should be provided to these festivals on a case-by-case basis and it’s crucial that there is flexibility in the funding process to ensure that festivals are properly supported. Farmers’ markets also play an important part in showcasing Welsh food and drink and, in particular, helping smaller producers to promote regional produce. There are some fantastic farmers’ markets across Wales—quite a few in my own constituency—so can the Cabinet Secretary tell us how this strategy supports those farmers’ markets specifically?

Deputy Presiding Officer, at the heart of any action plan for the food and drink industry must be a strong export strategy, and I appreciate that the Welsh Government is launching an export cluster later this year. However, will she tell us a bit more about how the Welsh Government is identifying business opportunities in both the domestic and the international markets? As the plan states, export market development is advanced by Government departments working together, and Governments at all levels working together. I appreciate that the Welsh Government participates in the global food security programme and in DEFRA’s food chain emergency liaison group, however, can she tell us what outcomes have been realised in relation to food security and food safety for Welsh producers?

Therefore, in closing, Deputy Presiding Officer, can I thank the Minister, once again, for her statement? I look forward to seeing some of the themes within this plan further developed to help the Welsh food and drink industry flourish in the future.

I thank Paul Davies for his questions and comments, and I, too, very much look forward to working with him in this very important area. You asked about the procurement of Welsh produce and products in the public sector, and, as I said, we’ve been working very closely with the National Procurement Service, which, you’ll be aware, was established back in 2013, I think it was, and that brought together the procurement of common and repetitive spend right across the public sector on a once-for-Wales basis. The NPS set up a food category forum to develop a food strategy, and that will inform the process of bringing the procurement of food within its scope throughout 2016. The food division sits on the NPS food category forum, and we are actively working with the NPS and key stakeholders.

We’ve now got several new lots that are being procured during this year: prepared sandwiches, sandwich fillings and buffet provision, for instance, and frozen plated meals. We’re making sure that we work—the health service with local authorities—to make sure that we are best placed to use Welsh products.

What the NPS is aiming, initially, for is to let contracts for a two-year period, then there’s the option to have a one-year extension, and we are now beginning to develop the tender documentation. The food category forum will be developing this documentation as we are going forward, and my officials are fully engaged in this process and working with NPS to identify suitable Welsh suppliers to provide them with the opportunity to bid for the frameworks.

You raised the point about education, training, skills and innovation, and that’s incredibly important. I think what we need to make sure is that we have a very skilled and capable workforce going forward, and that’s all about developing key partnerships within the skill supply chain. That means engaging with both secondary and higher education, and I’ve had some informal discussions with the Minister for education. I’m very keen to see young people brought in to show them what can be offered as a career within the food and drink sector, and you mentioned the work that has been done within the revised Welsh baccalaureate, where we’ve identified ways to introduce food modules, for instance. We’ve also worked with the sector skills councils to support the development of career ambassadors in the food industry, so that we can champion the wealth of opportunities that—as I said, it’s Wales’s biggest employer: 222,000 people if you include retail and restaurants and all aspects of food and drink. So, it’s the biggest employer we have across Wales. What the sector skills councils have done is they’ve developed industrial skill panels in the dairy sector, in technical skills and manufacturing skills, and that then will inform the development of the industrial skills that will be required within education and training.

You raised a question regarding food tourism, and, obviously, we have the food tourism action plan. That focuses on the importance of Welsh food and drink in terms of the visitor experience, and food and drink, I think, should be emblematic of the Welsh culture and have an international reputation for quality and authenticity that really reflects and enhances the very positive values of Welsh provenance. I think some excellent examples I can give you of collaboration between tourism and the food industry across Wales include businesses such as Dylan’s Restaurant in Menai Bridge, which has been very successful in winning the bronze award at the recent national tourism awards in the ‘eating out’ category.

Food and tourism, I think, are particularly important in Wales due to the economic importance of both of the sectors. It really does provide an essential part of the tourism offer that I think we have here in Wales, because it offers, I think, probably the most common point of contact with visitors.

In relation to exports, you mentioned the Hybu Cig Cymru enhanced export programme. What we want here, and we set that out within the Welsh red meat strategic action plan, is we want the industry to seek to increase sales. Export sales will obviously be a key component to that. I just had some conversations earlier today with someone who owns an abattoir, regarding red meat sales and the red meat sector specifically, because we know that exports are absolutely vital to farming and the processing industry in Wales. They account, approximately, for one third of all production. So, increasing returns to industry by maximising exports is really important in Wales. I’m very pleased to see that the Welsh Government’s three-year investment programme in supporting exports and developing new markets for quality Welsh lamb and beef has already produced an excellent return.

In relation to food festivals, I agree that there should be some flexibility about them. I’ve got a very rigid budget, unfortunately. I’d like to have more money, but I think you’re right: it’s about ensuring that it’s not just large food festivals that receive money; it’s about those small farmers’ markets. I remember, when I first got elected, back in 2007, somebody coming to me to try and get a farmers’ market up and running and there was just no funding available. So, it’s something that I have said to officials I’d be very keen to see, even if it’s just a small pot of money, to give them that sort of start going forward, because we know that a farmers’ market could really enhance a town centre experience and we’re looking into how we can regenerate our town centres. So, I think it is important to have that flexibility.

Okay. Thank you. We haven’t had any backbenchers speak, so I intend to call three backbenchers, but, again, the plea is for concise questions and concise answers. So, Jeremy Miles.

Diolch, Lywydd. I thank the Secretary for her statement. It’s such an important sector for us in Wales, so it’s great to hear of the rapid growth in the sector. For those of us who enjoy food, the renaissance of local food production in Wales is a thing of great joy even if it leads to rapid growth of a slightly less welcome kind perhaps. [Laughter.]

You’ve spoken about skills quite extensively, but I just have one particular point to develop on that. Obviously, filling the skills gap was a major priority in the action plan, and that has two components: attracting skilled employees, which you’ve talked about, but also developing the skills of existing employees in the workforce. Since many businesses in this sector are small and, indeed, are microbusinesses and micro-employers, they’ll face particular challenges in providing training and professional development to their workforce. So, will the Welsh Government be taking particular steps, bearing in mind the profile of employers in the sector, to support small and micro-employers in training and developing their workforce skills?

Thank you, Jeremy Miles, for that question. I think you raise a really important point around ensuring that we do create innovative, and maybe novel, approaches to encourage industry training for SME businesses. What we’re going to do is have a cluster approach, and we’re already trialling this with food businesses to support business growth. Upskilling and training is absolutely fundamental if we’re going to see that growth, and clusters are also identifying and addressing training needs in the most cost-effective way possible. We’re having some pilots in fine foods, NutriWales and the seafood, impact and export sectors, where a number of businesses are directly engaged in that skills development. As a Government, we already have a number of key skills programmes, but it is about building on that. We’ve also been able to use Jobs Growth Wales very successfully in this area too, and that’s helped employers to take on extra employees. That’s obviously provided valuable work experience opportunities for people right across Wales between the ages of 16 and 24.

I particularly welcome the actions on food poverty, and I am pleased that she mentioned the initiative that was taken in Cardiff by Food Cardiff—the school holidays initiative. One of the things that I’m very concerned about is waste. I held a short debate on waste during the last Assembly and there was a huge amount of public interest. As a result, I had some sort of training sessions in my constituency. Obviously, it’s not just the public themselves who waste food, but Tesco in particular—I think the amount of food it wastes went up 4 per cent in the year up to April 2016. So, I was wondering whether there was anything that could be done to incentivise businesses not to waste food. I know that you are going to review all of the food awards—I think that’s part of your action plan—and I just wondered if you could build into any of the food awards manufacturers who prevent waste.

The other issue, as part of this debate, is I held meetings with WRAP Cymru and other organisations, and another issue that I think is very important for food is the packaging of food. I know we want to have the Welsh brand on the packaging, but is there anything that can be done to try to reduce the amount of packaging that is used while still retaining the identification of the Welsh brand?

Thank you, Julie Morgan, for those points. I think it’s not just about food waste; I mentioned in my answer to Simon Thomas about the huge amount of food waste that there is, although some is redistributed, and obviously some goes for animal feed, it’s also about encouraging businesses to resource much more efficiently than they do. I’m not quite sure about incentivising large organisations such as Tesco, but I think it’s really important that we work with them to show that, if they do resource efficiently, there are many benefits to their own business, there are benefits to Wales, and of course there are benefits to the individuals who live in Wales. It’s about saving energy in Wales and being that much more sustainable and therefore creating less waste.

I was very interested in the pilot in Cardiff last year about the holiday hungry. I had one in my own constituency, which was run by a church. When you think about it, for a number of children who receive free school meals, what happens during the school holidays? It is a very successful scheme that’s been run for about a year now, in Wrexham, and I’m sure there are examples right across Wales. But, I think it is really important that we work, again, with big companies, maybe big supermarkets, to see if we can somehow redistribute that food in that way.

I mentioned earlier that I met with the FSA this morning, and that was something we talked about, because they feel that, perhaps, some of the big supermarkets are a bit afraid of giving food that is, perhaps, out of date, or past its sell-by date or past its use-by date. So, again, I think it’s really important that we get that right, get that labelling right, about what it all means. For instance, if it’s ‘use by’, that you do follow the instructions carefully, because that tends to be for food that goes off quickly, for instance, whereas if you have the ‘best before’, that tends to be frozen, dried, or tinned, and that’s not really about safety, it’s more about quality, and it can be used past the date. So, I think there is a great deal more that we can do. I’m very interested in the research that came out of WRAP in relation to that, but I think we definitely want to see, as we go through the action plan, that reduction in food waste.

Okay, thank you. And finally, Nick Ramsay.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I thank the Secretary for her statement this afternoon and for putting forward the action plan? If I can, I’ll just ask you about two points. First of all, this is probably a good opportunity to join Simon Thomas in flagging up the CAMRA event at the Assembly tomorrow evening—always a popular event; I can’t imagine why. I know that you’re going to be speaking at that event, Minister, so thank you for that. Real ale has been a huge success story. It looked like it was on the way out 30 or 40 years ago, but that has been turned around. How is your action plan going to ensure that other areas of food and drink that haven’t been doing so well in Wales over the last few years can be turned around as well? It’s very easy to put forward action plans and to talk about these things, but what actual positive changes will that make?

Secondly, you’re right to cite Wales as a potential exemplar of best practice. Again, how is that going to be achieved? You mentioned the food festivals. I, of course, in my area have the fantastic Abergavenny Food Festival. The Minister emeritus, Alun Davies, over there, in a previous ministerial life, used to very much enjoy that festival. I’m sure that you will be joining me—and probably him as well—at this festival later in the year. What are you doing to make sure that best practice is taken from food festivals? We talk about Abergavenny Food Festival now as a success story, but it did go through some difficult patches as well. There are other food festivals, both large and small, and farmers’ markets, trying to get off the ground across Wales and trying to improve. It’d be very easy if best practice is spread from one area to another so that those up-and-coming festivals don’t make some of the same mistakes as previous ones have.

Thank you. Yes, I know that the Member is sponsoring the CAMRA event, and I very much look forward to attending and speaking at it tomorrow evening.

You’re quite right about ale. I attended a cider and beer festival, and I think it was my very first engagement in this portfolio. As someone who doesn’t normally drink ale, I was absolutely astonished to see how many different types there were. I did try and pour one, but not very well unfortunately. I think you are right: it’s about looking at the sectors within the food and drink sector as a whole that aren’t doing so well, but I don’t think that that is an area that isn’t. I think we have given them support, and we are seeing several microbreweries appearing right across Wales.

In relation to best practice, you will have heard me speak in all my ministerial portfolios about the need for best practice. I think it’s an amazing traveller. People say it doesn’t travel well; I disagree, as it is something you can steal. I am very much looking forward to going to the food festivals over the coming months, starting, obviously, with the Royal Welsh Show, which I think is the best rural show that we have in the UK, and, in going to the food festivals, learning myself, listening to people who put these festivals on and seeing what we can take. If there is a food festival that feels it could benefit from another food festival’s experiences, I’d be very happy to ensure that officials get that across.

In Wales, we have so many products now with that European protected status, and we have more now coming forward. I mentioned, in reply to Simon Thomas, Carmarthen ham, and we’ve got about 10 UK applications, of which nine are from Wales. So, that shows that we really are punching above our weight.

Thank you very much, and that bring today’s proceedings to a close.

The meeting ended at 18:11.