The Scottish Government has awarded over £600,000 worth of funding to two Scottish butchers, one meat processor and an abattoir association. This funding has been given by the Scottish Government in order to allow them to expand their organisations. Border Meats in Lockerbie, Simon Howie Butchers in Perthshire, Millers of Speyside and The Scottish Islands Abattoir Association have secured the funding in order to expand their respective organisations.
Border Meats is a family-run butchery business based in Lockerbie. The Butchers employs 20 members of staff and has been given £305,000. These funds will be used by the company to centralise their operations, replacing their retail butchery premises that can be found on Goods Station Road and replace it with a new facility that is purpose built for their requirements and features a sustainable abattoir.
Simon Howie Butchers were awarded with a £206,294 government grant that will be used by the Perthshire butchers to create a dry goods store, a cold store and blast freezing facilities and a centralised meat packing room. This facility is to be constructed at Findony Farm. This grant is the second largest amount that has been awarded by the Scottish Government as part of this release of funding. Simon Howie Butchers already operates two retail butchery premises that are located in Perthshire and they have already purchased their third site, Findony Farm in preparation for development. The Butchers also supplies more than 200 hotels and restaurants.
The meat processing company that has also been given funding from the Scottish Government in order to expand is Millers of Speyside. This company is a multi-species meat processing company that has been awarded funding in order to purchase and install an incinerator on their site as well as a stun box to be used on their cattle and pig line. The meat processing company has been awarded £83,660 in order to carry out this expansion work.
The Scottish Islands Abattoir Association is made up of a collective group of slaughterhouses that are in water locked locations. The association is expected to receive £43,400 which will fund a feasibility study that will analyse the economic sustainability of abattoirs while also exploring the different ways that they levels of throughput could be increased.
