08/05/09 Less than a year after its launch an innovative new product, Summer Harvest Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil, produced by a Perthshire farming family has lifted two top awards at the Scottish food and drink “Oscars”.

The Cameron family were delighted to scoop two of the main category prizes at the Scotland Food and Drink Excellence Awards held in Glasgow's Kelvingrove Museum and attended by 300 leading representatives of the food and drink industry.

The family, who launched their Summer Harvest Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil last year, lifted the top awards in the Soup, Preserves and Accompaniments and the Healthy Eating categories.

David Cameron and his wife Elizabeth have grown oilseed rape on the family farm for more than 25 years but, with daughter, Margaret, and son-in-law Mark Bush, they have now started producing their “Summer Harvest” branded Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil.

Farming a 400 acre mixed arable and livestock unit at Ferneyfold Farm, Madderty near Crieff the family have started crushing, bottling and marketing rapeseed oil direct from the field.

The oil is proving very popular not only at farmers markets and farm shops but also at a number of high profile restaurants and delicatessens, said Mark and Margeret, clearly over the moon with their win.

“One of the most rewarding aspects of producing Summer Harvest over the past 12 months has been the amount of repeat business we are now generating from our customer base but winning these awards is really the icing on the cake for us after an exciting first year as they indicate wider industry support for the product,” said Mark.

The oil can be used in place of olive or other oils for cooking – it has a higher burning point than olive oil – and also in marinades and salad dressings. Among the many attributes of rapeseed oil, the Camerons point out, is that it has only six per cent saturated fat, compared with olive oil which typically has 14% and butter at 59%.

Rapeseed oil also had naturally occurring Vitamin E, an antioxidant, and is a good source of omega 3, 6 and 9. With a shelf life of around 12-18 months, the oil is simply pressed and filtered with no preservatives of additives.

The Scotland Food and Drink Excellence Awards attract entries from many of Scotland’s top producers and include 16 categories covering retail, foodservice, healthy eating, marketing initiative and environmental sustainablility.

Further information about Summer Harvest rapeseed oil is available at www.summerharvestoils.co.uk

18/03/09 Plans lodged by a Perthshire architect to develop Croft Na Caber at Loch Tay into a world-class sailing resort involving a £20 million investment were today (Wednesday 18th March) approved by Perth & Kinross Council’s Development Control Committee.

Eric Strickland, senior partner of McKenzie Strickland Associates based in Aberfeldy and Crieff, submitted the plans jointly with local business partner, Paul Sale, through their company, Strathtay Developments.

The almost unanimous decision by planners to give the project the green light was warmly welcomed by Mr Strickland who, together with the McKenzie Strickland Associates team and Mr Sale, has spent three and a half years working on the project. Mr Strickland, who learned to sail at Croft na Caber as a teenager, said he was delighted he will now be able to progress realising a life-time dream.

The redevelopment plans include a sailing school, restaurant, kids’ club, health spa and swimming pool. It is expected the investment would create up to 42 new jobs at the resort and construction work could be underway within a year, with the earliest completion date expected to be 2012.

The pair’s vision is to develop the site into an accessible, high quality resort where people of all ages can sail in a safe environment.

“We are delighted the development committee has confidence in our plans to create a ‘jewel in the crown’ resort for Perthshire which both locals and visitors will treasure,” said Mr Strickland.

“I am passionate about this project and about Kenmore as a destination and our plans aim to preserve the tranquillity which makes the area so special while breathing new life into a resort which is out-dated and no longer meets expectations in terms of accommodation and facilities.

“To create a national sailing asset like this in the heart of Perthshire is a unique and amazing opportunity and we are confident our designs will unlock the potential of the existing resort through a long-term, sustainable development which compliments the stunning setting of Loch Tay.”

The development will include one, two, three and four bedroom holiday accommodation units and the buildings will harness green technology including heating using geothermal from the loch and biomass conversion.

The resort is expected to appeal to a wide range of visitors, from people taking family holidays to corporate away-days.

Strathtay Developments have been consulting closely with the local community, including the operators of the Crannog Centre adjacent to Croft Na Caber. This centre currently attracts around 30,000 visitors annually and the redevelopment plans, added Mr Strickland, take full consideration of the importance of this attraction and the heritage of the wider area.

The investment at Croft Na Caber should, Mr Strickland added, provide improved facilities for visitors to the Crannog and encourage them to stay longer in the local area.

ends

Plans lodged by a Perthshire architect to develop Croft Na Caber at Loch Tay into a world-class sailing resort involving a £20 million investment were today (Wednesday 18th March) approved by Perth & Kinross Council’s Development Control Committee.

Eric Strickland, senior partner of McKenzie Strickland Associates based in Aberfeldy and Crieff, submitted the plans jointly with local business partner, Paul Sale, through their company, Strathtay Developments.

The almost unanimous decision by planners to give the project the green light was warmly welcomed by Mr Strickland who, together with the McKenzie Strickland Associates team and Mr Sale, has spent three and a half years working on the project. Mr Strickland, who learned to sail at Croft na Caber as a teenager, said he was delighted he will now be able to progress realising a life-time dream.

The redevelopment plans include a sailing school, restaurant, kids’ club, health spa and swimming pool. It is expected the investment would create up to 42 new jobs at the resort and construction work could be underway within a year, with the earliest completion date expected to be 2012.

The pair’s vision is to develop the site into an accessible, high quality resort where people of all ages can sail in a safe environment.

“We are delighted the development committee has confidence in our plans to create a ‘jewel in the crown’ resort for Perthshire which both locals and visitors will treasure,” said Mr Strickland.

“I am passionate about this project and about Kenmore as a destination and our plans aim to preserve the tranquillity which makes the area so special while breathing new life into a resort which is out-dated and no longer meets expectations in terms of accommodation and facilities.

“To create a national sailing asset like this in the heart of Perthshire is a unique and amazing opportunity and we are confident our designs will unlock the potential of the existing resort through a long-term, sustainable development which compliments the stunning setting of Loch Tay.”

The development will include one, two, three and four bedroom holiday accommodation units and the buildings will harness green technology including heating using geothermal from the loch and biomass conversion.

The resort is expected to appeal to a wide range of visitors, from people taking family holidays to corporate away-days.

Strathtay Developments have been consulting closely with the local community, including the operators of the Crannog Centre adjacent to Croft Na Caber. This centre currently attracts around 30,000 visitors annually and the redevelopment plans, added Mr Strickland, take full consideration of the importance of this attraction and the heritage of the wider area.

The investment at Croft Na Caber should, Mr Strickland added, provide improved facilities for visitors to the Crannog and encourage them to stay longer in the local area.

ends

The weather may have made this harvest difficult but farmers increased their co-operation to cope. As a result, the country’s largest machinery and labour sharing organisation surged to new record turnover figures.
Ringlink managing director, Graham Bruce, told members this week, that turnover of the 2,300 member strong organisation, had risen 25% over the past year and had now reached £25 million.
“The testing harvest we have just come through has proven the value of the Ring system. Without the flexibility and ability to transfer resources through a large area which Ringlink has, the harvest would have been much more difficult for individual members.
“During the period of most demand, we were moving combines and balers from areas where harvest was well through to parts of the countryside where a great deal of the crop still had to be harvested.”
Now in its twentieth year of operation, Ringlink membership covers the area east of a line from Inverness to Perth, from its head office in Laurencekirk.
Chairman, Mark Ogg, said the Ring system also played an important role in removing uncertainty from farmers’ financial concerns with a guaranteed payment 28 days after work had been invoiced. Significantly, in those credit crunching times, it also allowed farmers to reduce their capital costs through the sharing of machinery.
Coping with the demands of the wet season was made easier by the increased capacity of some of the combines now available. Mr Bruce said the big problem the Ring had faced in the past year had been a shortage of labour.
“Often it was possible to get a combine but the farmer said he could not spare a man to drive it. This shortage of labour has been creeping up on the industry for some time now and it now looms over everything we do.”
The shortage of workers was not just in the skilled sector involving tractor and combine drivers. Mr Bruce referred to increasing problems with sourcing workers for jobs at the lower end of the skills scale.
Ringlink’s subsidiary company that deals with labour supply Mearns and Angus Services Ltd, (MASL) now had an average of 80 employees working full time and this would peak at 140 at peak periods, but this workforce was still not sufficient to cope with demand.
Mr Bruce was critical of Angus Council for making it more difficult for farmers to house migrant workers in static caravans on farms. The local authority is now requiring farmers to licence these premises in order to regulate them.
“A tightening up has been necessary,” Mr Bruce admitted, “But the proposed requirements are just crazy. They will only licence a site if there are five caravans so how does the farmer who only wants a couple of workers cope with that.
“They also do not want caravans to be away from the workplace but the whole farm is a workplace. So that is impossible.”
He appealed for a commonsense set of practical guidelines to be set out so that standards would apply and for those conditions to be based on practicalities and not just theory.
In recent years, Ringlink has increasingly taken on a role of supplying commodities to its membership and Mr Bruce indicated that the co-op were looking at expanding from their present main supplies of fuel, fertilisers and straw into agricultural chemicals.