Monthly Meeting – “Starting is only half the battle”
Anne was delighted to welcome a packed hall (even with a number of apologies) to our February meeting. Helen confirmed the finances remain stable with no new transactions in the previous month. Anne mentioned the craft meeting which had been held and the follow up crochet session has been planned for 27 February – please join us if you want to learn or improve your practice; Saturday 24 February sees a quiz in Blair Drummond Hall fundraising for their Curling Club and they’d be delighted if anyone wanted to participate; or we can also learn how to make fabric wreaths on Tuesday 12 March in the STEP meeting room or bookbinding in Blairgowrie (a wee day out!) on Sunday 17 March – let us have names if you are interested.
Sophie Brewster from Wester Borland then shared the story of Farrah’s diversification journey including the challenges which the family had overcome. Having moved from South West Scotland and a mixed dairy farming and townie background before going to university in Edinburgh, she met her husband-to-be Alan and completed her bioscience degree before working in a lab where she noticed that others’ loved their work… and Sophie learned she wanted to love what she did too! She moved on to work for a farming consultancy and learned how to challenge, train and coach people before becoming self employed. By investing their savings and working contract farming, the family started on their ten year journey with a few surprises on the way (children and a wedding!) while increasing the farm business. Lots of investments – cows, land, slurry stores – to ensure stability during turbulent times. The Farrah business was set up before the Farrah daughter came along and when she did then the plans changed again! Many of the choices the family made are influenced by factors outside their control e.g. the milk market crash and cycles and in order to survive you need to focus on the consumers as well as the needs of the family. As a family unit there is a lot of strength and opportunity but it took some scary and significant risks to get to where the business is today, for example moving to a new premises and ensuring there was compliance with environmental standards and learning how to move 10,000 glass bottles with a new forklift!
Sophie’s take home lessons from their journey are just to ‘do it’ – it’s scary but if you manage as well as you can there are fewer sleepless nights – the family have created a product they are proud of, with the only complaint being that we need more volume! Everything is local – products, packaging to generate a great reputation. Sophie then answered questions and clarified that there are 220 Holstein cows, housed 365 days per year producing c45kg of milk per day. They are easy and enjoyable to work with, milking 3 times per day – 3am/11am/7pm – helped by local staff who enjoy working with the business. There is 4.1% butterfat in the milk depending on the silage, and there are routine feet trims and 8-10 weeks ‘dry per year’ with calfing at 24-26 months. A robot system would be a different approach but the Farrahs is parlour milking with a 16/32 set up. There is camera coverage over the whole facility which gives some interesting viewing! The Holsteins are “bred to milk” and there is a science to the feed ratio which is different to the approach with Friesians and the Holsteins are supported by nutritionists and scientists and vets. Typically farms are passed down through generations but this is not necessarily a barrier anymore and it is possible to start a contract farm from scratch, although having the family support is amazing. The design of the branding was done by Sophie and some of it is still printed by hand but the milk is sold via an automated vending machine at Blair Drummond Smiddy where there is a steady milk business to locals and flavoured milk which sells more to tourists. The bottles are not currently re-used by Farrahs, as they cannot be guaranteed to be cleaned properly so cannot be returned but the vending machine can accept any container. The Gelato sales are more widespread – gelato has a higher milk content, with less cream and sugar than icecream – the texture, taste and quality of gelato is far superior to icecream! Sorbets have also been added to the range, with a high fruit content, which brings out the flavour when in season. The gelato is sold from the Smiddy but also from the ‘pinky’ van and the hope is to expand before adding more staff and drivers. Sophie shared tasters of gelato and sorbet made with milk from the lunchtime milking today – it couldn’t be fresher or more local! Roll on the summer weather when we can eat more sorbet, but don’t forget ‘Winter Apple Pie’ flavour which is available now!
After our gelato tasting we still found space for a superb Ruskie tea with an astonishing selection of sweet and savoury treats – very hearty thanks to our hostesses!
Competitions
85th Birthday Cup/ Cheese Scones – 1) Allison Macleod 2) Anne Artis 3) Liz Black
Cow item – 1) Anne Artis 2) Alison Smellie 3) Allison Macleod
