A storm is brewing over cups of tea served in the Scottish Parliament after it was revealed that Holyrood is ignoring its own policy of using locally-sourced products.
Currently, all tea served at Holyrood is being supplied by London-based Jacksons of Piccadilly despite a pledge to promote Scottish produce in the building.
The parliament's official policy on "sustainable food sourcing" talks about helping to promote Scottish produce and also reducing its carbon footprint.
Lothian Tory MSP Miles Briggs said there were plenty Scottish tea firms who could meet Holyrood's tea needs.
The Conservative pointed to Brodies, based in Musselburgh, as an example of a Scottish tea that could potentially be served in parliament.
He has now written to the corporate body of the parliament calling for catering contractors to meet with potential Scottish suppliers.
Mr Briggs said: "Constituents who have visited Holyrood have expressed surprise that a local tea supplier, such as the renowned Brodies which is based in Musselburgh, does not have its products used or for sale within the parliament.
"The corporate body catering standards policy indicates it wants to help to promote Scottish produce whilst reducing Holyrood's carbon footprint but this doesn't appear to be the case at present in terms of the tea supplied here.
"Given we have some world class producers locally, such as the famous Brodies which blends its teas at the Newhailes Industrial Estate, just over five miles away from the parliament building, it seems to me that the parliament's caterers supplier.
"This would be both a real boost to both the company involved and a positive move in terms of reducing the parliament's food miles.
"I hope the corporate body will agree to look into this matter and help support a local or Scottish tea manufacturer supply our parliament."
A Scottish Parliament spokesman said catering provider Sodexo had previously approached Scottish tea suppliers, including Brodies.
He said: "Unfortunately, the tea suppliers were not able to guarantee that their tea is Fairly Traded.
"As we specify the use of Fairly Traded tea within our contract terms and our catering standards policy, they were not, therefore, able to qualify as a tea supplier for us."
He added that if any tea supplier now had a more consistent supply of Fairly Traded tea, they should make contact with Sodexo's purchasing team.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here