Mearns farmer Doug Smith’s life-long love of Simmental cattle has reached new levels with plans to sell meat from Simmental-sired cattle direct to shoppers.
Mr Smith runs the well-known Drumsleed herd of pedigree Simmentals at Drumsleed, Fordoun, Laurencekirk, with his parents Gerald and Morag.
The family is well known on the show and sales circuit and now Doug, the fourth generation of the Smith family working the land at Drumsleed, has launched his own venture with a focus on selling top-quality beef direct to consumers.
Together with his wife Fiona, who runs the successful Spud Hut farm shop at the neighbouring Cairnton Farm, Mr Smith has plans to sell meat from some of Drumsleed’s 130-cow herd of commercial cattle.
The commercial herd, which comprises cross Simmental, Salers and Shorthorn cattle, runs alongside the 100-cow pedigree herd.
“I’m a huge lover of the Simmental breed in general and the butcher that we are using said Simmentals produce a very good cut as well,” said Mr Smith.
“It’s something a bit different. Everybody usually goes for the native breeds but because we are Simmental breeders I wanted to use them.”
He has teamed up with Forfar-based butcher and Aberdeen-Angus breeder, Alan Rennie, to launch the enterprise.
An early launch of products was sourced from Rennie’s Butchers and sold through the Spud Hut with great success.
“It’s been great and has really exceeded my expectations,” said Mr Smith.
“Quite a lot of people have been commenting on the traceability.
“I display all the tag numbers of the cattle and details of the killing plant and where it has been butchered.”
Within the next eight weeks Mr Smith plans to put his first batch of home-reared cattle through the system, and in turn sell the first of his home-produced beef through Drumsleed Meats.
He is also busy constructing a small farm shop to sell meat at Drumsleed, which will be ready in the next few weeks.
“People will be able to see the cattle in the field when they visit the shop,” said Mr Smith.
