With my PR hat on, I attended the Black Isle Show last week to promote the Scottish Crofting Federation’s Scottish Crofting Produce quality mark using the medium of pies.
Yes, pies are good communicators. They drew hordes into the SCF stand, and as they sat there ,plump and juicy waiting to be eaten we were able to tell our salivating visitors of their great assets.
For one, they were filled with prime young grass-fed mutton. The sheep which obligingly provided the filling for our pies grew up in Rogart, Sutherland eating grass and heather. As part of SCF’s Scottish Crofting Produce quality mark scheme, it was not fed lots of artificial inputs, nor were the pastures where it was reared. Research now proves that the meat from sheep and cattle reared in this way contains more goodies like Vitamins A,E and K, more CLAs and more Omega 3s than their equivalent grain-fed intensively reared animals.
So our pie fillings were about as healthy as can be. They were hand-made by Allan Doherty, a true artesan baker who with his wife Alex runs the Ullapool Bakery. The pastry was just right, crumbly and delicious.
Then there’s the environmental aspect. The Scottish Highlands and Islands need a healthy balance of livestock to graze them to maintain their fragile eco-system, and at this moment there aren’t enough sheep on the hills, for a variety of reasons.
By creating a line of Crofter’s Pies, featuring young mutton, SCF will also create a demand for mutton, encouraging crofters to grow more sheep for an assured market. That will benefit the crofter, the environment, the local economy and the consumer. That’s my reasoning anyway, and SCF like the notion enough to start serious product development.
And at the show, it seemed visitors couldn’t get enough of our pies. They loved everything about them, particularly the tender, flavourful meat. Now we just have to bring them to market.
Who ate all the pies? The good folk of SCF:
