Mackenzie's Farm - The Story
Our family have lived and farmed our small croft for hundreds of years! We continue the practices of our ancestors and, in one form or another, we rear:
- beef cattle
- sheep
We produce silage, meadow hay, oats/barley, neeps (the Shetland word for turnips) and Shetland kale in our fields.
We grow Rhubarb for delicious jams and fruit desserts. In 2019 we embarked on getting our 100% Shetland Sheep's wool processed into natural and dyed yarn and now have our very own brand called Aister 'oo'. We eat our own beef, lamb & mutton and not wanting to waste anything, we get our Sheep Skins processed into beautiful soft rugs. As we also grow Shetland Kale, we keep a few Stalks and let them go to seed and produce Shetland Kale seed for market.
Our new website is easy to order from! Do have a look at our online shop at www.mackenziesfarmshop.co.uk
Previously: Our community of Cunningsburgh lost its shop a few years ago. Sometime after that, we began to operate an honesty box system on our croft where people stop along and buy our produce. This started with a few dozen eggs in a small box at the road side, but grew to a (very clean) livestock trailer stocked with our own produce, other people’s produce, bread, firewood, milk, and so on. We only operated on a Friday (local newspaper day – which we sold around 90 of per week!)
In 2016, we built our Farm Shop and Cafe and operated it until 2021. We leased out our Cafe and continued to operate the Farm Shop ourselves. Sadly the lease didn't work out and we closed the business in July 2023.
We are now completely online and focus on what does work! Our produce, wool and household fuel. It's actually awesome to be able to have the time to do what we like again and have time together with our family.
Kenneth, Hazel and Family
