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.
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.
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.
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.
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
A proud Cornishman, born on a beach, John is now a resident of the Scottish highlands.
After University in Loughborough and striving to be a athlete John joined Kodak as a process engineer for photographic papers and films. Later joining Eastman Kodak working on large scale plastic production and control systems he found a love for the hills and rock climbing that last to today.
Joining W L Gore and Associates in Livingston in 1996, John moved to Scotland and had his first taste of employee ownership. Gore is a radical place in the eyes of many with a unique engagement culture.
John rose quicky to plant leader, European manufacturing leader before taking on a product specialist business development role and finally a global IT project leading a team of over 130 associates distributed across the world developing the next generation of systems within manufacturing.
Leaving Gore gave the opportunity to join Aquascot as MD in 2020, who he had been connected to since 2008 when the AQS team visited Gore to ask how a manufacturing company had won Sunday Times Best companies to work for 4 years on the trot!
Aquascot is a fully employee-owned trust in Alness and dedicated supplier to Waitrose for 30 years. This year Aquascot was awarded Own Brand Supplier of the year from Waitrose a true achievement to the commitment of the team from the Highlands. John is married to Lorna with two children and loves living in the rural highlands, but still has a part of him in Cornwall.