About us

Scotland’s experts on farmer co-ops and food industry collaboration, we work with food and farming businesses to make them more profitable, competitive, and sustainable - #workingtogether to shape the future, today.

What we do

All our work helps facilitate farmers and food and drink businesses to work together effectively. Over the years we've expanded and developed subsidiary businesses - getting the right people together and making innovative advancements - to help benefit food, farming and rural Scotland.

Events & Training

Developing staff capability is one of the most effective ways to improve a co-op’s performance. Check out our events and training programme - most of which are open to non co-op members too.

Membership

As a development organisation, owned by our members, we provide a range of specialist services not available elsewhere, to assist them in developing their people and their businesses. Get in touch to find out how we can help you.

What's New

See below for all the latest news, views and updates from us here at SAOS. Find all our latest videos on YouTube at: SAOS - working together in food and farming

Trying hard to be free of doom and gloom, our 'A-Z for a Bright Future' shared 26 reasons why there’s much to be optimistic about in the food and farming sector for 2021 and beyond. We believe that with ambition and focus, and by working together more effectively, we can find and maximise opportunities.


Our speakers looked at some of our A-Z topics more closely and the other topics were covered in 'expo booths'. Scroll down and click on the individual letters below for each topic.

  • Tim Bailey, our CEO, outlined SAOS’s V for Vision of how we can become more sustainable for the future by working together
  • James Withers of Scotland Food & Drink found it hard to be 100% positive in January, but outlined that there are O for Opportunities
  • Anna Robertson and George Noble of SAOS explored how we can use D for Data to help with the challenges of reaching our Net Zero target
  • Bob Yuill spoke about the need to have the infrastructure in place to get Scotland better connected in C for Connectivity
  • Claire Dyce and Mark Clark of Grampian Growers talked about how A for Adding value to primary products is a key to unlock new markets and improve farmer profitability
  • Jim Booth and Alan Stevenson of SAOS showed how W for Working Together effectively has provided business benefits for our member co-ops and in our supply chain work
  • Tim Bailey closed the conference by highlighting how sympathetic Government P for Policy is needed to help with all of the above.

Conference Expo Booths

The other reasons to feel positive were covered in our expo booths which we know not everyone got round to visiting. Several of these we handed over to partner organisations to share their positive views, and also our sponsors NFU Mutual, and Ledingham Chalmers hosted booths.