ANUGA

“If you are serious about exporting then this is the place you have

to be,” is the blunt message from Sandra Sullivan when asked why anyone should come to Cologne to the massive ANUGA

food fair. Ms Sullivan has a vested interest of course because her firm help support small and medium businesses

come to this event, which is held every second year. This year, some 67 companies took stand space under the UK

banner.

Craigs at the Helm

The task of absorbing the equivalent of 15 years of cost

inflation in just six months has intensified the commercial pressures facing Scotland’s meat processers says Alan

Craig, newly appointed president of the Scottish Association of Meat Wholesalers (SAMW).

The Scottish Association of Meat Wholesalers

The Scottish Association of

Meat Wholesalers (SAMW) has submitted an innovative funding solution, which provides Scotland’s beef and sheep

breeders with a significant increase in support, without any reduction in funding for the dairy and arable sectors,

to the Scottish Government.

“We believe that the option we’ve presented to Government has the potential to

reverse the damaging downward trend in livestock breeding which has existed since CAP reform,” said Alan Jess, SAMW

president. “In addition to our core proposal, we’ve also given Government a variation to consider as an alternative

solution. We believe both of these proposals ‘tick all the boxes’ without damaging other sectors in the process.

They also ensure that the new level of funding is directed entirely towards those who are engaged in active

farming.

Alan Craig takes the Chair

“Beef is as popular as electricity – it’s in 94%

of homes.” So says the new chief executive of Scotland’s largest farmer-owner group of businesses.

Alan Craig

recently took over at the helm of the Aberdeenshire-based ANM Group Ltd following the retirement at the end of April

of Brian Pack after nearly two decades in charge.

A one month handover period gave Alan the chance to tour

the Group’s diverse and geographically far-flung locations from Yorkshire to Caithness, and two weeks into the job

proper he is relishing the change and challenges that his new role presents.

UK Young Butcher of the Year

At nineteen most young lads aren’t taking life

too seriously – they are into sport, girls, furthering their education or starting a working career. Very few

contemplate establishing their own business, let alone in another country.

Opening a butchers shop in

Dalbeattie, Dumfriesshire, on his 19th birthday was a big move for any teenager, “It was daunting to say the least,"

admitted Alan.

“He is a great talent, the best I've ever seen in 45 years of working as a butcher. I would

say Alan is a perfectionist, and combined with his talent and his approach to hard work it makes him, I think,

unbeatable. He has achieved so much already, but this is only the very start, and his future will be very, very

exciting," reads the quote on his website from his one and only employer – Joe Hutton – who Alan worked for in his

first year.
Coming from a pedigree sheep and cattle farming background gave Alan a head start in the quality meat

stakes.

Damn Delicious

Operating the only complete forage based beef finishing

system in Scotland and possibly the UK, Michael Shannon of Thankerton Camp, Lanarkshire has a unique product and –

as the label says – it is Damn Delicious!!

Having spent twenty-three years selling the virtues of grass seeds

and kale varieties wholesale across the country as an agent and consultant for British Seed Houses, the last British

seed company, Michael Shannon is now practicing what he preached.

Michael bought the 175-acre Lanarkshire

property in 1996, but as he had a full time job he initially rented it out. “I felt to make this farm viable I was

going to have to sell my own produce. I’m a business man – in it to make money, no sentimentality.”

When

researching he realised that so many farmers were selling their own meat, “it was absolutely phenomenal, we had to

do something different.”