Alistair and Harriet Busby
We both come from farming families and have now come home to roost. Little Nell and Iris Busby have since joined us in the nest. Good food to us means many happy evenings in the kitchen enjoying the fruits of our labour. This website is designed to help those who also appreciate the finer food in life so you can share our bounty. Limiting yourself to seasonal, well-produced food is much more satisfying than the baffling choice of ingredients a supermarket can throw at you. It’s guaranteed to taste better too – seasonal, quality ingredients invariably make tastier, healthier food.
Alistair: My family farm was devastated by a contiguous cull as part of the 2001 Foot & Mouth epidemic. The traditional open hill farming based on sheep being ‘hefted’ (knowing their patch of land and how best to survive on it) and without fields or fencing on the hill, sadly ensured all sheep were lost to the cull as they could technically move across the whole hill farm area. Fortunately, the huge task of restocking has proved more successful than many could have imagined. I took this opportunity to take over the reins from my father and review farming methods and best guess the future of livestock farming. Cutting out the middle men and thereby improving freshness and accountability for the customer, is a more stable and much more rewarding way to farm. It’s my only hope for a future free of ever decreasing subsidy from which no farmer gains satisfaction relying on anyway. They have been a force of necessity due to the way our EU common market and major supermarkets operate.
Harriet: My family farm is predominantly arable, growing wheat, oilseed rape and barley. Since marrying Alistair and uniting our farms, livestock has gradually made a comeback into the fields. Locally we are best known for our blossoming soft fruit pick your own fields. As a girl I set up jam production in the family kitchen – great for pocket money! As a student I was promoted to the heady responsibility of running the Pick Your Own tent. Heavenly in good weather, bleak in bad. In recent years, I’ve set up a café for weary pickers to have a cuppa and eat my cakes. Now it’s time to spread our Border Berries further afield.
Production Methods
Our Busby lamb and beef are reared on open hill. Free and happy as can be. The wild boar live in woodland, snuffling about using natural instinct to feed while the pigs live happily in open grass with a barn to sleep in at night.
Game lives a completely wild life in the Scottish Borders where the mix of woodland, hill and arable land gives it a great diversity of food to thrive on. This is a highly prized feature of our game and much appreciated by the finest chefs as far afield as Paris.
All our lamb, beef, wild boar and pork are slaughtered locally in Galashiels. They are then packed by us and delivered fresh – never frozen – to you within days.
We grow our summer berries in the fresh, open air with no polytunnels. This keeps the season short but the fruit sweet.
It gives us a huge amount of satisfaction to share our good food with you, safe in the knowledge that you’ll enjoy it too!
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