Farmers & Farm Shops | Andrew Booth, The Store
If there’s one characteristic of the Scottish farmer, it’s his hands-on approach. No-one demonstrates this better than Andrew Booth of The Store Company. He may be the Director of The Store brand but he definitely isn’t a suit! You’re just as likely to find him preparing the finished cattle, or out on another farm sourcing the kind of quality animals on which the business is based, or even driving the combine harvester if the weather looks settled and every hand is needed. All this, as well as overseeing the continued buoyancy of their two farm shop outlets at Foveran near Aberdeen and in Stockbridge, Edinburgh.
Farming has been in the family’s blood for four generations at least – and the family is key to today’s operation. The solid and collective experience of the generations is the resource used to maintain the highest standards in the core business – top-notch beef and lamb.
The Booth family established The Store in 2000 as a way of re-connecting farming with the final consumer. Their farm raises quality cattle (Aberdeen Angus) and sheep (Suffolks and Texels) in low densities in open fields, the feeding on the natural pastures being supplemented by homegrown fodder with no GM supplements. The Booths see the meat product through from pasture to consumer at the counter, thus making traceability completely guaranteed. Naturally, the emphasis is on taste and flavour, so that meats are hung in the traditional way.
This ‘holistic’ approach to quality extends out into the farming environment where vegetables are grown without artificial fertilisers and pesticides, in a way sympathetic to the environment. Wild areas are left where possible, to benefit insects and other local wildlife.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the chain, that is, over the counter at the two shops, the same concern for quality shows consistently not just through the cuts of Aberdeen Angus beef and the grass-fed lamb but also throughout the entire product range – the hampers, cheeses, eggs, poultry, breads, preserves and condiments. Lucky Stockbridge (Edinburgh) customers, for example, can also buy meals freshly-prepared by former Grampian Chef of the Year, Ryan Paterson, now cooking up a variety of menus on the Stockbridge shop premises. (Note to Edinburgh New Town dinner party hosts: your guests will never know you didn’t cook it yourself!)
If you can’t make it to Aberdeen and Edinburgh, you can order on line where you’ll still benefit from family expertise in this enterprise which intends, in Andrew Booth’s own words, ‘to keep Scotland’s natural larder door well and truly open.’