Conference Tours
Coastal Aberdeenshire Tour
Tour Aberdeenshire’s stunning coastline and head back towards the city, visiting three successful agritourism businesses showcasing large scale farm retail, production, experiences and accommodation.
DOWN ON THE FARM
Hosts – Carole and Mathew Short
Agritourism
Down on the Farm offers unique places to stay on a working farm by the sea, in northeast Aberdeenshire.
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Following a successful glamping initiative in 2012, accommodation has grown year on year to accommodate up to 13 guests across five properties. A small tearoom was added in 2016 which provides catering after farm tours. Paid farm experiences including lambing experiences started in 2018, followed by a motorhome Aire in 2023, and most recently, a PYO Rhubarb Patch in 2025.
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During lambing time, the business offers lambing experiences for visitors. Down on the Farm is working with the travel trade to welcome more international visitors.
Couples, families and groups are welcomed on to the farm 12 months of the year.
Farm
The farm produces Scotch Beef and Scotch Lamb. There are 100 breeding cows, a mixture of Charolais, Simmental and MRIs and 80 breeding Dorset Horn ewes.
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The farm extends to 200 acres and is adjacent to the North Sea near the village of Rosehearty.
MARSHALLS FARM SHOP AND CAFÉ
Hosts - The Marshall Family
Agritourism
Marshalls Farm Shop and Café is run by Kenny and Moira Marshall alongside their three daughters, Christine, Julie and Shona, who all work full-time in the business.
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The farm is located on the edge of one of the busiest routes in the northeast of Scotland, on the A96 Aberdeen to Inverness road and only 10 miles from Aberdeen. An ideal location for a farm shop and café.
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In the 1990s, the Marshall family launched an open sided self-service trailer at the side of the road, selling tatties (potatoes) and eggs and the farm retail enterprise has grown significantly since then. A state-of-the-art building housing the farm shop and café opened in 2010, a fire-side bothy opened in 2020 and a larger extension followed in Autumn 2021. 180 people can be accommodated to eat food at any one time in the café, bothy and on outside seating. The retail space extends to 1700m2 and will be further extended by 600m2 later in 2025. Marshalls has one of the largest farm retail offerings in Scotland.
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Farm produce is used in many recipes sold in the café providing a farm to fork experience and the food offering includes one of the only agritourism drive through take aways in Scotland.
Farm
Up until 2007 the farm’s main focus was milk production from a dairy herd. It became hard to make a profit from dairy and when the herd was sold, the farm began growing vegetables on a larger scale and selling produce direct to the public.
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Today the farming enterprise is 2500 acres of arable growing malting barley, winter barley, wheat, potatoes, carrots, turnips, broccoli, beetroot, cabbage, cauliflower and kale.
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The farm produces Scotch Beef from a herd of 500 cows, 300 being pure Aberdeen Angus and the rest a mixture of Simmental and Luing breeds. 500 breeding ewes produce Scotch lamb. The farm also has 3000 hens for eggs. Much of the produce from the farm is sold direct to consumer in the farm shop and in the farm café.
RORA DAIRY
Hosts – Bruce and Jane Mackie
Agritourism
Middleton of Rora Farm is an organic farm, home to 240 Holstein dairy cows as well as Bruce and Jane Mackie.
Bruce and Jane opened holiday cottages in 2010 and they welcome people from all over the world to stay on the farm and have a proper tour whilst on site. They also work closely with the local schools to encourage children to learn about farming and offer adhoc tours.
Jane makes award winning yogurt on the farm that is made simply with organic milk, live culture and local fruit. It is sold to farm shops and delis across the UK as well as supermarkets and local hotels throughout Scotland. They also have a pop up shop on the farm selling yogurt and local fruit that is operated through an honesty box system.
Farm
Bruce’s family have been farming at Middleton of Rora Farm since 1966 and his family has farmed in Aberdeenshire for generations.
Bruce converted the 800 acre farm to organic 5 years ago, as it sat well with his environmental conscience, and he thought there was more of an opportunity in organic milk. Bruce’s passion for the environment, birdlife and wildlife has encouraged continual tree and hedge planting, which adds to the beautiful farm landscape.
The cows milk themselves through robots and choose when they want to be milked as well as when they wish to head outside – it is a calm environment for all to see.
