Local Food Production - Collective routes to market
Local food production - Collective routes to market
Working with others and sharing resources and expertise can be a great way of getting started in selling your croft produce, without taking all the risk on yourself. It's easier to create a consistent supply, develop a wider network of customers, and share out all those unpaid jobs that underpin every small food business, especially in the early days.
Following on from our Local Food Hub webinar, Helen O'Keefe who, with neighbour Tessa Dorrian, set up the Green Bowl, will guide you through other options for working collectively to create sustainable routes to market.
There will also be plenty of time for questions and to use Helen as a sounding board for your ideas!
Helen runs Middleton Croft in Elphin where her priority is to produce quality local food while maintaining exceptional animal welfare standards and improving the health of the land and the surrounding ecosystems. Helen keeps Shetland sheep bred for both their wool and meat, with very little external input. The meat is sold directly to customers. There is also a small orchard and outdoor vegetable garden, and a large polytunnel growing a wide range of crops, for an extended period.
The Green Bowl is a local food hub based in Elphin. A collaboration between crofters and other local producers, selling - according to the season - meat, vegetables, fruit, herbs, honey, bread, eggs and cut flowers from crofts, common grazing and backyards!
Our local food webinars are supplementary to our in-person programme.
Click here to check out the locations and dates of these for an in-depth look at how to set up your own local food business from your primary produce.
Book early as spaces will be limited and we anticipate a high demand for this workshop.
Ticket prices:- £5 Members/£15 Non-Members
Once your booking is complete, a link will be sent out with your confirmation email. If you do not receive an email, please check your spam or junk folder. You can contact us at hq@crofting.org if you require any assistance.
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Wondering why we ask you to pay for this workshop?
The Scottish Crofting Federation (SCF) is a registered charity and relies primarily on membership subscriptions for its income. We need to keep finding other ways to cover our costs.
The SCF (originally the Crofters' Union) has been championing crofters for 40 years and we want to continue to do so for the next 40!
Membership of the SCF gives you multiple benefits including:- a voice at national level, reduced price training, access to advice from a panel of expert crofters, a free 30 minute legal consultation, news and updates that affect crofting with The Crofter magazine twice a year and monthly e-newsletters.
Join Now! https://www.crofting.org/membership/
This workshop is part of our Crofting for the Future series and is 75% subsidised through the SRDP Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Fund (KTIF), funded by Scottish Government.
With grateful thanks to the Pebble Trust for additional funding support for our Crofting for the Future project in 2026-2027.
The Pebble Trust has a vision for a more sustainable, fair, and low-carbon society, where constraints on fossil fuels lead to a more localised economy with stronger, more resilient communities.