Aithsetter Croft – Farm Produces

Our Family have been working the Croft at Aithsetter (or Aister as the locals call it) for around 500 years!

We take care to breed, birth, rear, grow and produce our fine food. We believe in ‘slow food’ as it takes months to grow the perfect meat.

Our weaned piglets are reared to about 6 months. They only eat fruit, vegetables and cereals. They are free range (sometimes more free range than we’d like!) and enjoy a field to themselves and live in ‘up-cycled’ redundant salmon bins for protection from rain, wind or occasional sun!

We also have a variety of cattle breeds on our Croft: Aberdeen Angus, Saler, Simmental, Belted Galloway & Charolais. We rear our calves until about 2 year old which gives a richer fuller flavour – slow food! Shetland has quite a short growing season (approx. 90 -100 days) so we winter our cattle inside for 7 months of the year. This means we grow many acres of silage plus meadow hay, Shetland kale (cabbage), neeps (turnips) to feed them. They also have bagged cereals of barley & wheat, which is brought into the Croft.

On our Croft we have a poly tunnel and it’s a great way of growing our own produce. We have leeks, onions, tomatoes, cucumber, peas, beetroot, cherries and grapes to name a few! Out in the fields we grow neeps, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and Shetland kale. Our Aithsetter Croft Shetland Kale Seeds available from Mackenzies Farm shop.

Last but not least, our own free-range hens produce our eggs that we sell in the Farm Shop & also use in the kitchen. The yolks are orangey and we love people coming back time and again, especially for them!