Whitmuir Farm Shop

On Sunday, as it was a beautiful day, I decided to take my girls out to one of my favourite foodie destinations. Whitmuir farm is a working, organic farm with a shop, restaurant, bakery and butchery on site. Owned and run by two visionaries of the sustainable food movement Heather Anderson and Pete Ritchie.

Whitmuir The Organic Place, as it likes to be called, sits around 20 minutes south of Edinburgh on the A701, near the Spanish sounding village of Lamancha.

My first port of call is always the fruit and vegetable shop.  There is always something that catches my eye.

Amongst all of the veg I spotted some yummy looking broad beans, beetroot and these funky parsnips.

Once in the main shop I spotted Heather Anderson, one of the co-owners behind the meat counter. Heather is absolutely passionate about sustainable, local food. She always has a huge smile on her face which hides the hard obvious hard work that it takes to run a food business.

" We decided to grow the food, prepare the food, cook the food and sell the food" she says

"It doesn't get any harder that that"

Nowhere is Heathers enthusiasm more evident than in their amazing bread.

"All of the bread you see is baked from our own wheat grown on the farm"

This becomes even more remarkable when you realise that they are the only people in the county to grow their own wheat, mill it, bake it and sell it to the public.

"All of our wheat is imported from abroad"

Heather noted,

"We want to start a cooperative of local growers and start to produce Scottish flour again."

It is this infectious vision that makes you realise that Heather and her partner Pete Richie are here to stay.

Heather was kind enough to take a bit of time out of her day to show us their onsite bakery.

Heather also took me to see their butchery where I saw some of the best lamb, beef and pork I have ever seen, hanging in their cool room.

They also have chickens for laying eggs and also for the table.

After the tour of the food preparation areas we took a walk round the farm. The farm is accessible all year round, but we were lucky and since it was spring there were beautiful little lambs and piglets to be seen.

After all of that walking we decided it was time to collapse into one of the sofas in the cafe with a well-deserved cake!

If you want to visit the farm all of the details can be found at: 

www.whitmuirtheorganicplace.co.uk