Arran Dairies on the move as it looks to green future
Arran Dairies will have one of the greenest production facilities, not just on Arran but the whole of Scotland, when it moves its operations to Home Farm in a few months’ time.
The business, along with sister company Taste of Arran, is moving from its long-time base in Market Road to a warehouse which is currently being converted to meet all the company’s future needs. It plans to move in late spring or early summer.
Sustainability will be at the heart of the new operation with all the ice cream made using the power generated by the solar panels which will cover the roof of the new warehouse – the biggest ever seen on the island.
And Arran Dairies’ green ambitions do not stop there with plans to become one of the greenest companies in the world.
Managing director Alastair Dobson told the Banner: “The roof of the existing warehouse will be replaced and we will install a solar panel array of 250kw.
“A 230kw Heizomat biomass boiler will also be installed to produce processing and space heat.
“The solar and hot water produced will allow a small district heat and electricity scheme to be developed for other site tenants, including Arran Aromatics and Island Cheese Company, helping them achieve their carbon reduction targets and improving their efficiencies.
“We will convert part of the current redundant warehouse to frozen, chilled and ambient storage for finished goods, packaging and ingredients.
“The freezer and chill will be constructed with the most modern insulated panels, again adding to our efficiency and reducing carbon footprint.
“Refrigeration will be of modern design and we will capture heat where possible to be reused in production or space heating.
“Process refrigeration will also be air-cooled saving
500,000 litres of water per annum.
“Newly installed refrigeration equipment will cut our energy usage per litre of ice cream manufactured by 30-50 per cent.”
Arran Dairies is a fourth-generation food manufacturing, wholesale and distribution business which supplies food, drink and related products to hospitality, retail and community businesses on Arran and has a current turnover of £3.5 million. It also manufactures award-winning Arran Ice Cream using Arran milk which sells throughout Arran and further afield through its fully integrated Taste of Arran business, which provides
‘Newly installed refrigeration equipment will cut our energy usage per litre of ice cream manufactured by 30-50 per cent.’
sales, marketing, logistical and technical services to Arran-based food and drink producers.
It supplies artisan, Arranproduced food and drink products to a wide base of customers in Scotland, the rest of the UK and internationally.
Alastair told the Banner: “We plan to redevelop a partially redundant warehouse at Home Farm, Brodick, to facilitate a new ‘smart’ manufacturing and distribution premises.
“This, aligned with our market development activity, will underpin our ambition to become one of the world’s most socially and environmentally engaged companies.
“We plan to achieve this by developing a transformational manufacturing, storage, distribution and administration facility in the most environmentally sustainable way.
“This will lead to more high value, sustainable local jobs and more consistent quality, service and communications with our suppliers and customers.”
Alastair’s grandparents started the Dobson farming business in Brodick in 1937.
Arran Dairies has come a long way since it was set up 45 years ago by Alastair’s father Russell in 1978. Today the day-to-day running of the company is in the hands of his grandchildren, Matthew, in management and production, and Hannah running Taste of Arran.
The Home Farm move was planned for 2020 when Covid hit and the company subsequently lost 90 per cent of its turnover during the lockdown periods, which badly hit its cash reserves. Alastair admitted: “Even though our reserves have been grossly depleted, the need for investment is still critical as our old facilities and equipment are nearly overwhelmed and we are working at full capacity.
“We are limping on but are not be able to fulfil new sales opportunities, could lose existing customers and staff and facilities are close to being overwhelmed.”
Arran Dairies and Taste of Arran are living wage employers and were certified Investors in People. They currently have 14 direct employees and support 40 indirect jobs.
“We worked hard to support and retain our full team throughout the pandemic as our team of passionate, hard-working individuals are key to our business and central to our future plans,” said Alastair. “We will continue to invest in our team through digitalisation and process enhancements leading to more high value jobs.
“With built manufacturing space at a premium on the island, so the purchasing and repurposing of a partially-redundant warehouse owned by Highlands and Islands Enterprise presents the ideal solution to provide our company with a long-term, sustainable future in a smart, green, digitally-enabled manufacturing facility.”
The building was previously part of Arran Aromatics, which it used for candle-making, and it will retain two-thirds of the premises.
Alastair reinforced the company’s green ambitions: “The purchase of new energy efficient ice cream and dairy manufacturing equipment will improve our efficiency and productivity dramatically and will also future-proof by increasing potential capacity by 300 per cent.
“We have already made significant improvements to our operations that have delivered savings of 10 tonnes of CO2 and 500,000 litres of water.
“We are already carbon neutral with offsets against the land we own; we plan to be carbon neutral without offsets by 2030 and carbon net zero by 2035.”