Farm Diversification – family farm develop self-service butchers shop range

Go Native & Wild with Midlothian family farm’s new innovative farm shop

Farm diversification at its best! This small article looks at how a family farm has developed a farm shop and their plans to expand in the future.

A great read for anybody considering farm diversification themselves.

A farming family who launched a self-service butcher’s shop has been given the go-ahead to expand its stock.

Award-winning farmer for farm diversification: Peter Eccles

Peter and Eilidh Eccles started their innovative vending machine shop to offer their own meat for sale at the edge of Saughland Farm, Pathhead, at the end of the year.

The couple, who run Native and Wild meat boxes online, delivering boxes of their own produce to customers near and far, were keen to give locals the chance to access their products from the farm itself.

Now they have been given the go-ahead to import more produce to the shop to expand their stock and offer more to customers.

Planning officers said that the original vending shop was able to operate because it was considered ancillary to the farm business but that restricted the produce able to be sold which did not come from the farm itself to 10 per cent.

An application to allow it to bring in more diverse produce was lodged with Midlothian Council and given the go-ahead last week.

A report by planning officers said: “The applicant has an existing internet business selling meat from the farm’s herd; whilst the farm shop will primarily focus on the farm’s butchery meat, the applicant wishes to stock a wider range of imported goods to increase consumer interest.

“The scale and nature of the farm shop will ensure that the retail element will remain subsidiary to the main agricultural use of the site whilst aiding farm diversification; it will not be out of character with the surrounding rural area.”

Article taken from Edinburgh News