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Support Local Business
Communicate Provenance, Grow Your Business
How To Market Mossgiel For Your Business – Provenance
Customers demand a lot these days, especially when it comes to food. For reasons of environmental impact, concern for animal welfare, health considerations; a vital part of marketing today is communicating the “Three P’s” to your customers: provenance, provenance, provenance.
Provenance – Provenance – Provenance
We have experience of supplying many hundreds of businesses – Bakers, Butchers, Cafes, Cheesemakers, Coffee Roasters, Coffee Shops, Ice Cream Shops, Restaurants and Retailers – and we speak to many people about how to present our Milk to their customers.
www.VisitScotland.com, who grade businesses both for the “Green Tourism Award“, the “Taste Our Best” scheme and for the more general Star Rating given by their “Quality Assurance Scheme“, place a lot of emphasis on sourcing and provenance. We supply many businesses who have a Green Tourism Award, including the only Green Tourism Gold Award holder in North Ayrshire. It seems to us that the businesses that do best in such audits and receive the best ratings and awards have put the most thought and effort into where they source their ingredients from and also into how they communicate these choices to their customers.
Customers care about provenance; they want to know where their food has come from.
Based on our experience interacting with the lovely people that drink our Milk, your customers will care about your choice of Milk for one (or possibly more) of the following broad reasons:
Re-usable packaging
Food Miles / Local Production
Carbon Emissions
Biodiversity
Health
Taste
One of the reasons for having as many articles on this website as we do is to try and help our supporters understand as many different ways to communicate these benefits to their customers as possible.
Example Menu Provenance Statements
The rules of this game are that space is tight, so be as concise as possible. Feel free to use the following as a guide but remember to use your own words as much as possible when it comes to putting anything online. Google prefers original content.
When crafting provenance statements, a good format to follow is to answer
- What have you done?
- Why have you done that?
- How does that benefit your customers?
Introductory – What have you done?
- “We source our milk from Mossgiel Organic Farm.”
- “We get get our milk locally from Mossgiel Organic Farm.”
- “Our milk comes from Mossgiel Organic Farm (18 miles).”
Reasons for choosing Mossgiel – Why have you done that?
Mossgiel Farm is a certified Organic Farm located in Ayrshire. Bryce converted his Family Farm to an Organic production system in 2018, as he looks to embrace management practices that work with, rather than against, the natural environment.
Examples of the changes he has made include:
Agriculture
“Mossgiel is a certified Organic Farm.”
“Mossgiel is a Family Farm.”
“Bryce Cunningham is the third generation of his Family to farm Mossgiel.”
“No GM crops are planted on Mossgiel and no GM food is fed to the Cows. The Organic certification ensures and enforces this.”
“Mossgiel Cows are fed Grass all the time. No cereals are fed to the cows at Mossgiel.”
Local On-site Production
This philosophy extends beyond Agriculture to include production, which Bryce has brought back on-site in order to reduce food miles and keep things as local as possible.
“Mossgiel is the first Farm in the UK to completely stop using single-use plastic packaging.”
“Milk is delivered to residential customers in good old-fashioned 1 pint bottles.”
“Milk is also delivered in 3 litre, 5 litre or 20 litre tubs. These sizes are usually more useful to commercial customers: coffee shops, restaurants etc.”
“Reusing packaging is 20 times more efficient than recycling packaging.”
“Semi-Skimmed Milk, Whole Milk and Cream are all produced and delivered.”
“Mossgiel Cows eat only Organic Grass.”
“Good old-fashioned Milk where the Cream rises to the top.”
“The Cream in Mossgiel Milk has not been emulsified (ie broken by being squeezed through a very small hole at a very high pressure).”
“Cream in its natural state takes on flavour better and is digested better.”
“Mossgiel Organic Whole Milk contains all the cream that our Cows produce and this varies between 4.5% and 4.9% during the year. (Standardised “Whole” Milk ~ 3.6%)”
“Mossgiel Organic Cream contains all the fat that our Cows produce: 48%”
“This means that the Milk is heated at lower temperature (68°) for a longer time (5 mins) to retain the most Organic flavour and so as not to destroy proteins.”
Advocacy
As well as his activities as a Climate Change Champion, Bryce regularly speaks at Higher Education establishments. He also campaigns for Regenerative Farming, Organic Farming and Environmentally Friendly Production via radio and TV appearances.
Awards
- BBC Food & Farming Awards 2019 Winner Farming Today Future Food Award – Mossgiel Organic Farm
- Winner of the Slow Food Awards Person of the Year 2019 – Bryce Cunningham
- Scottish Rural Awards 2019 – Agriculture Winner – Mossgiel Organic Farm
- Scottish Land & Estates Making It Happen Awards 2018 – Winner – Mossgiel Organic Farm
Rationale – Why have you done that?
General Rationale
Customers understand that every pound counts. Every pound spent supports the whole system and supply chain of the product on which it is spent. Customers also understand that you get what you pay for and are willing to pay slightly more for something that aligns with their values. They are more loyal to businesses that they know share their values.
The example phrases below all follow the format: “Do you care about this? So do we, and here’s what we’ve done about it.” This is what makes a big difference to people. Actions. There are plenty of businesses out there paying lip service to these subjects, but a lot fewer actually changing their behaviour to benefit them. People are not stupid and they can tell the difference.
Complete Examples For Menus
Short Examples:
“Milk: Mossgiel Organic Farm. Local, waste-free packaging, highest animal welfare standards, carbon positive, tasty good old-fashioned cream-at-the-top Milk.”
“Milk supplied by Mossgiel Organic Farm: local, re-usable packaging, highest animal welfare standards, carbon positive, tasty, healthy, GM-free, good old-fashioned, cream-at-the-top Milk.”
“Our Milk comes locally from Mossgiel Organic Farm, who are the first Dairy in the UK to stop using single-use packaging. They process their Milk on-site in the old-fashioned way, further reducing food miles while evoking the taste of yesteryear when Milk wasn’t white water!”
Longer Example:
Our Milk is supplied locally by Mossgiel Organic Farm.
Re-usable packaging
Mossgiel is the first Farm in the UK to completely stop using single-use plastic packaging. We believe that far to much plastic is ending up in the ocean and that far too much plastic makes its way into landfill. We believe that it is much better to re-use packaging than re-cycle it. By switching to Mossgiel, we save 10,000 2L plastic Milk jugs per year.
Carbon Emissions
We believe in supporting local companies who are making a carbon positive contribution to climate change. Mossgiel Organic Farm is responsible for capturing 388 tons of carbon per year from the atmosphere.
Biodiversity
We believe in supporting local companies who are actively improving biodiversity. Organic farming is on the forefront of battling the negative impact of mono-culture conventional farming.
Health
We believe in always using the healthiest ingredients available. The non-homogenised Milk supplied by Mossgiel is more easily absorbed by the body, and thus all the vitamins dissolved in the cream are more easily absorbed too.
Taste
We believe in always using the tastiest ingredients available. Due to the way Mossgiel Milk is produced – non-homgenised, non-standardised, batch-pasteurised, organic – it takes on flavour better than ‘normal’ Milk; especially in Coffee!
Physical Marketing Support
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Shop Local + Supply Local = Support Local
Shop Local – Local is Best
The Shop Local movement has been gathering pace for a number of years now in response to what has been described as the less than ethical dealings of super-markets. If you’ve been following us for a while, you may know that a large part of the story of how Mossgiel Organic Farm started down its current path concerns the behaviour of super-markets. Super-markets exercise huge buying power. This is not a power that they always yield responsibly. It could be argued quite convincingly that given half a chance they morph in to nothing less than bullies.
Mossgiel Organic Farm does not and will not supply super-markets
Local stores are not owned by faceless shareholders who care for nothing but profit. They are owned and run by folk who stay locally and they have local employees. Money spent in local stores stays in the local area. Local stores are more accountable; if you don’t like something that a supermarket is doing, can you speak to the owner?
Food Miles – How much Carbon is in your food?
Shops that use local suppliers reduce Carbon Emissions. There is a world of difference between the amount of diesel used to transport Scottish Lamb to your plate and New Zealand Lamb, for example. The same applies to Milk. Milk brings with it its own complications when it comes to transport, being bulky and heavy. Despite that, Milk in supermarkets can have travelled a long way to get there. Not all Milk on Scottish shelves even started out in Scotland!
Local Initiative
Local stores are much more likely to be involved in a meaningful way with the communities that they serve. They are also more likely to get involved in schemes like returning to re-usable glass Milk bottles. This is good for their bottom line as it tends to result in increased footfall, prompting customers to return to the store to exchange their empty bottles. It is also good for us all in reducing the amount of waste produced and reducing the amount of energy required to manufacture it in the first place.
Every Pound Is A Vote
Do you want a strong vibrant local economy with more community engagement? Would you like to reduce carbon emmissions by lowering your food miles? Do you want to help the environment by reducing waste, lessening the amount of plastic that ends up in our landfills and our oceans?
Shop Local.
Locavore – Organic Milk Retailer
Organic & Locally Sourced – Delivered To Your Door!
Locavore, on the corner of Victoria Road and Calder Street on Glasgow’s South Side, is a wonderful place to go for all things Organic and Sustainable. They are one of Mossgiel’s biggest supporters, having a Milk Dispensing Machine, using our Milk in their ethically-sourced coffee and supplying pint bottles via their Veg-Box service! This means that if you live in Glasgow within range of this service, you can have Mossgiel Organic Milk delivered to your door along with your Organic Veg – sorted!
The Grocery contains hundreds of different types of Organically grown and ethically sourced produce adhering to the philosophy of keeping things as local as possible. To this end, Locavore even grow their own Organic Veg within the City – how’s that for keeping food miles to a minimum?!
Re-usable Packaging
Locavore have exactly the same outlook as ourselves when it comes to packaging – it’s better to re-use than to re-cycle! They have LOADS of dispensers in-store for things as diverse as flour and washing up liquid for you to bring your own containers along and re-fill. So why don’t you take a wee trip down to see them, buy a bottle from them and fill it with delicious Organic Milk? Then you can say good-bye forever to those awful plastic jugs you get in super-markets while you are enjoying the taste of proper, old-fashioned Milk (rather than the watered-down white water that you tend to find in the plastic milk jugs!).
While you’re at it, you might want to have a wee slice of their cake to celebrate taking the decision to eliminate an on-going source of plastic waste from your life. Such decisions are the only way that plastic problem is ever going to get sorted, so we would say that you definitely deserve it! And their cake is awfully good…
349 Victoria Road, Glasgow, G42 7SA