Hopetoun Farm Shop Trims Festive Food Miles and Waste

Hopetoun Farm Shop is on a mission to help festive shoppers cut back on waste and food miles by helping consumers calculate how much food they need and offering Scottish-only produce.

The shop stocks Scotland’s finest foods including meat, poultry and game from the Hopetoun Estate, near South Queensferry.

Research has identified that a Christmas dinner could have travelled the equivalent of more than 10 times around the world before ending up on the plate.

Hopetoun’s home-reared turkeys, game, lamb and beef are from nearby fields with vegetables sourced from Cairnie in Fife. Other award-winning suppliers of festive produce include smoked salmon from Ruan Fhadar, St Monans; mince pies from Patisserie Jacob, Edinburgh; and cheese from St Andrews Farmhouse Cheese Company.

With a staggering 23,000 tonnes of food worth around £275m wasted in Britain each festive period, Hopetoun Farm Shop believes that by offering advice on quantities required to feed guest numbers, shoppers will save money and avoid mountains of leftover food.

Farm shop manager Elaine Shirley explained: "Sustainability and food provenance are at the heart of the Hopetoun Farm Shop offer so this sits comfortably with what we aim to do – help shoppers make informed food choices.

"By offering a pre-ordering service as well as having well-trained, knowledgeable staff on hand to guide shoppers to the right product and the correct quantities, we believe that we can create a shopping experience that is pleasurable rather than hurried and stressful."

Mike Eagers, Hopetoun’s estate manager, added: "Hopetoun turkeys are being reared on the Estate and our beef is hung to our own specification of 30 days so it is beautifully tender.

"We are confident that with the help of our master butcher, our customers will have a very delicious Christmas season."

Also on offer are Hopetoun hampers and food gifts. Elaine added: "We look forward to spreading some Christmas joy with lots of free tasters."

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