North Ayrshire Council defend £170,000 food and drink spend

But the authority insists that the costs incurred were recouped by the sale of the items at events and council-run venues.

The local authority’s total spend on alcohol, tea, coffee, cakes, confectionery and snacks has been disclosed following a freedom of information request by Ayrshire Weekly Press.

Nearly half – £80,016.65, or 46.7 per cent of the total – was spent on “crisps, snacks and nuts”.

We asked for a breakdown of total spending by North Ayrshire Council (NAC) on alcohol, hot drinks and various other sweet and savoury snacks over the last five years.

The council says £171,395.63 was spent on the items between May 2019 and April of this year.

The largest single spend in the ‘crisps, snacks and nuts’ category was £11,829.61 on ‘fruitypot peach and pears’, in multipacks of 18.

The council spent £2,754.04 on Mars bars. (Image: PA)

This multipack has been bought 1,746 times since 2019, a total of 31,428 pots.

A total of £22,917.37 was spent on confectionery, with the biggest spend in that category being on standard Mars bars – a total of 130 boxes of 48 bars apiece, or 6,240 Mars bars altogether.

The total spent on alcohol was £21,815.70, for sale at bars operated by the local authority at venues and events.

However, the booze total only covers three of the last five years, as no money was spent at all on alcoholic drinks for two years because of the Covid pandemic.

No further details of the items purchased was disclosed, though the most popular drink for those buying from council-run bars was Smirnoff vodka and Tennent's Lager.

Tennent's lager was the most popular alcoholic drink with customers at council-run venues and events. (Image: Newsquest)

Meanwhile, a total of £21,563.56 was spent on coffee, including £7,293.25 on Nescafe instant coffee in single 750g containers, a total of 277.5 kilograms.

The spend on tea was £10,524.08, including £4,700.90 spent on a total of 236,720 Tetley teabags.

The final category of spending detailed in the FOI request was 'sweet biscuits, cookies and cakes', on which NAC spent £14,558.27 – including £3,326.13 which was spent on 28,300 packs of Brakes minipack biscuits.

A spokesperson said: “We operate a number of venues which are hired for events, such as weddings and parties.

Tea bags cost the council more than £10,000. (Image: PublicDomainPictures/Pixabay.com)

“We aim to ensure that guests receive the quality type of service they would expect from other commercial operators and this outlay reflects the cost of food and drink which are sold at these events, with money being recouped by the council.

“Additionally, the outlay also includes the cost of food and beverages which are then sold in vending machines and cafes we operate at various venues across North Ayrshire.”