Highland crofter and pig farmer who immediately saw potential

Highland crofter and pig farmer Michelle Anderson-Carroll stumbled across the Food Assembly while investigating options to create markets for her pork produced from the endangered breed of Oxford Sandy and Black pig.

Immediately struck by the advantages of the initiative, she joined the pre-order shopping system network and became host of the Inverness Assembly. It launched last May with just less than 200 customers. Today around 850 have signed up and an unforeseen bonus is the sense of community it has engendered.

“Collection day is like a wee village shop – everyone comes in and has a blether,” said Michelle.

“Customers know each other and there’s quite a community aspect to it which I did not expect.”

While customers were enthusiastic from the off, persuading producers of the merits of the network was slightly more challenging but the benefits soon became clear: operating independently, each small-scale producer has their individual website, delivery slots and payments to manage plus the uncertainty of sales levels at standard farmers’ markets – sometimes bad weather means stock doesn’t sell on market day and a loss is incurred. But with the assembly everything is in a one-stop online shop and sales are known in advance through online ordering.

The Inverness Food Assembly features 260 local products, including Michelle’s River Croft free range pork, available for collection at Fairways Leisure each Thursday.

For information on other Food Assemblies in Scotland and across the UK visit https://thefoodassembly. com/en

Michelle Anderson-Carroll with one of her pigs.