Milking a Highland cash cow

Scotland’s Highland cattle are famed for their beauty and beef, but now one enterprising Barcaldine farmer has turned her hill farm into an ice cream factory, to harvest the breed’s butter-fat rich milk.

Jane Isaacson, launched Highland Fold Ice Cream in August at the 60th Appin Agricultural Show, milked from her fold of Highland cattle named Daisy, Sileas, Heather and Banarach (‘milkmaid’ in Gaelic) at Achinreir Farm.

Jane, the sustainability and development manager at Dunollie Museum, Castle and Grounds, was offered the farm on a long-term basis in 2014. ‘It was a totally out-of-the-blue chance,’ she explained. ‘I did not know how to make a living off the farm. I had to decide what I was going to do with it. I wanted to make the farm sustainable. It all came together in an epiphany.’

Hardy Highland cattle are an ancient breed known to have survived the poor land and harsh conditions presented by the hills, glens and islands of the Scottish Highlands since the sixth century. Highland cattle provided meat and milk to subsistence crofters, who even used the hair to spin yarn.

Jane said: ‘They are so good at converting our scrappy grassland into high quality milk, which is why they can grow these huge calves on virtually nothing in the Highlands.

‘What inspired me was the milk, cheeses and butter taken from the Highland cattle in the sheilings. There are lots of references in history. The yield is much smaller and the milk is much richer.’

The butter-fat in the milk of the Highland can be as high as nine to 10 per cent, much higher than conventional milking breeds which tends to be between three and five per cent, her website states. ‘Maybe you could make ice cream from Highland cattle because of the high fat content?’ she wondered. ‘I thought it must work.’

But at first many were not so sure. ‘They looked at me as if I was off my trolley,’ she said. ‘There were lots of comments that you cannot milk a Highlander.'

Jane secured funding from the Scottish Government, leased the ‘hideously expensive equipment’, travelled far for dairying and ice cream making courses, and converted her old tin shed into a milking parlour, the old stable into an ice cream kitchen and a horse trailer into its travelling shop.

‘It took two and a half years to plan the business,’ she said. ‘I nearly gave up on a number of occasions, when it seemed too difficult for me. The vision of it kept me going. I just wanted it to work so much. The hard work is done and now I have to make it pay for itself.’

Helped by her children, John and Sophie, Jane’s ice cream business is now up and scooping, serving a pure Highland milk flavour ice cream, using toppings made by local artisans. ‘I wanted all the toppings to be either made by local people or gathered locally,’ she said.

Highland Fold Ice Cream’s next outing will be at the Highland Cattle Society show and sale at Oban Auction Mart on October 8, having sold out early at the Dalmally Show, and she is already planning to make bespoke ice creams for venues.

‘I did not expect people to take it seriously,’ she said. ‘That’s what inspired me: that people thought it would not work. I hope it will.’