About us

In the beginning...
Ochil Foods can trace its routes back to Andrew Dixon ( my Grandfather), who ran a small 400 acre farm at Balgour just outside Dunning, Perthshire. The farm included both arable and livestock, pigs, sheep and Aberdeen Angus Cattle. What one could describe in today’s language the perfect “sustainable farm”. He was a passionate and pioneering farmer and local politician. He was the first man in Scotland to rear Turkeys ( Bronze free range), and sold them to a few local hotels including Gleneagles and Crieff Hydro. He later went on to become President of the Aberdeen Angus Association ( when Aberdeen Angus, were the size of sheltand pony’s!) and set up the British Turkey Federation with Bernard Mathews. His similarities with Bernard Mathews ended there, he was absolutely against intensive farming.
The big change...
Sadly, this ethos became our undoing. My father, Neil, was handed a poisoned chalice when he took over the farm in the early 1980’s, intensive farming and the supermarkets were dominating, commodity prices were plummeting and you either grew big or diversified. Dad tried to diversify building a farm shop in the 1980s, unfortunately he was before his time and eventually he was forced to sell the farm. He knew he wanted to continue to work with food, his passion, but how he was not sure. Then he saw an advert in the local paper for a small trout farm and somehow scraped together enough money with the help of the bank to buy it. With one van he started selling the trout to local restaurants and soon added game, and other products he found on his rounds, cheeses, fruit, chutneys all became part of the range.
The third generation...
In 2009 Jeremy, Neil and Annie's son joined the business, having played a very active role since the age of between his studies. He has brought his experiences to give the company new direction
Today against this background of knowledge, expertise and good practise we are growing the business at quite a rate, with a strategy that I think makes us unique in the market place. We are categorizing ourselves more along the lines of geography rather than traditional product group. This I think encourages the promotion and use of more seasonal, local produce. for example in the summer we work with Arbuckles Fruit Farm because they are next door, we sell herbs form Scotherb because they are next door and Murray Mcbay Lobster & Crab in Johnshaven because our empty van passes their door twice a week, these are all products you would not traditionally expect to get from your traditional game dealer.