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Mearns farmer Doug Smith’s life-long love of Simmental cattle set him thinking about  selling 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.

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🍓🫐Look what we have in the fridges today strawberries 🫐🍓 

We have the return of some tasty strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. 😍

We also have plenty of you favourite beef cuts in stock too

🍔 Burgers
🌭 Sausages 
🥩 Sirloin steaks 
🥩 Ribeye steaks 
🥩 Fillet steaks
🥩 Mince 
🥩Silverside
🥩Diced steak 

There are also whole chickens and bacon too. 

📍 All available from 7am to 9pm at Drumsleed Farm, Fordoun, AB30 1SL.
We got baling on Sunday in one of my favourite fields we get to go in. 

The picture does not do this stunning view any justice and although you can’t see them in the picture there are a couple of one of my favourite things flying about - Red Kites. At one point I counted 11 of them.

The down side is we are on a steep hill and I’m pretty sure the farmer didn’t cut the field below to test our bale positioning skills!! 🙈😂
Well would you look at this… 
Absolutely love when people send me photos of what they’ve cooked and doesn’t this just look delightful! 

I’m really proud to bring you not only our own beef but also our own lamb. 

All the lambs were born and reared from the land right here at Drumsleed. 
You may have seen them when they were inside during lambing season in the shed across from the shop, they then went out to the small field at the road end, proceeded to belt up and down the drive and the main road 🙈 and now have set up home in one of the large fields on the opposite side of the road. 

Although the wooly brutes are definitely not my favourite part of farming, ensuring traceability of the food we put on our plate is right up my street.
❤️A first for us at Drumsleed today and that we have some of our own lamb in the fridge. ❤️

🐑 Thank you to everyone who bought our lamb boxes this week. 

🔪 A special mention and thanks to our butcher Kirsty from Highland Butchery who has gone that extra mile to cut these lambs up for us and continues to keep fresh beef in stock for us. 🥩 

🔜 Will be doing more lamb boxes when the next batch are ready so keep an eye out on our socials. 

#aberdeenshirebeef #aberdeenshirelamb #familybusiness
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