The biggest happening of 2015, at least for foodies, is its rather bold designation as the Year of Food and Drink - not the week or the fortnight, mind, but the full 12 months.
This is surely a sign of confidence in the burgeoning industry, which is on track to be worth £16.5bn by 2017.
It's being handled by Scotland Food and Drink in tandem with VisitScotland, which is tasked with using food tourism as a way of luring back the record 6.44 million oversees visitors who came here in the first half of the year. Stats for July-December, in which Scotland hosted the Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup and continued the Year of Homecoming, have yet to be released but will doubtless show a sharp increase.
The year will consist of various individual food events and details are still being finalised. Those in the industry - from farmers, growers, producers and chefs to restaurant, hotel and B&B owners across the land - are being encouraged to come up with ideas, with funding of up to £25,000 available from the Community Food Fund. Each month has a different set of food themes to inspire food trails, markets, festivals, and so on. January, for example, will focus on the food associated with Hogmanay and Burns' Night (steak pies, haggis, shortbread) and February on oysters, seafood and chocolate for Valentine's, and so on.
Schools, too, are being given extra funding from the new Food for Thought Education Fund to help explore these themes in class.
Education is a big part of the Year of Food and Drink and the largest public event planned so far is the first Children's Food Festival. It takes place in Dingwall in June with the aim of educating young people about where food comes from and - an increasingly important issue - how they might work in the industry.
UK Barista Championships take place in March at Glasgow's SECC during ScotHot 2015, Scotland's largest food, drink, hospitality and tourism show. Contestants will get 15 minutes to make four espressos, four cappuccinos and four espresso-based non-alcoholic speciality drinks and the winner will represent the UK at the World Barista Championships in Seattle in April. ScotHot will also see the 30th Scottish Culinary Championships, which challenges chefs to create show-stopping food sculptures as well as being judged in a live cook-off. To encourage young chefs there's a new risotto and dessert challenge this year.
Meanwhile, 2015 is also the International Year of Soils and the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen is hosting a raft of events around this all-important yet fragile food-growing resource.
€¢Details from visitscotland.org and scotlandfoodanddrink.com
CATE DEVINE
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