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

NEW! The Art of Communication - Creating and Executing a Bespoke Communications Plan

12 March 2025

10:00am - 1:00pm

Online

We've created a brand new workshop with a focus on communications aimed at improving your member engagement and meeting your member needs.

Find it challenging to allocate the time and resource or just in need of some additional support and information to create a bespoke communications plan targeted towards a specific objective? Then this three hour online workshop will certainly leave you feeling more confident in the development and execution of a plan that does just that. The objectives can be wide ranging. They might include:

  • Selling more product
  • Attracting members to an event like an AGM, smaller meeting, show or demonstration
  • Filling a specified training course
  • New member recruitment

The key to the workshop is in identifying an outcome which can be measured and where the communication tools used can be assessed - what worked well, what worked less well and what might be changed in future. The first part will be to highlight the various media tools and how they might be assessed using the 4C template (cost, control, credibility and customers) and will include some practical examples. In the second part we will support you in creating your own bespoke plan and this could take the form of e.g. you're aiming to sell more product e.g. feed from October to March, what communication and other actions should you take in May, June, July, August or you're aiming to attract new members to your co-op how do you communicate this to existing members and attract others from the next generation for example.

Workshop Leaders

  • Hamish Walls - Project Manager (Marketing and Supply Chain Specialist), SAOS

Hamish has a BSc (Hons) – Agriculture from the University of Newcastle (1984) and a Professional Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (2009). He joined SAOS) Ltd in 1998.

Prior to that Hamish was involved in the farming and food sector. Initially he worked for an ICI subsidiary, Scottish Agricultural Industries, selling fertiliser and buying and trading grain and later moved on to work as Sales Director for H O Short and Son, a specialist flour miller, selling cereal food ingredients to both domestic and export customers.

Hamish's Key Skills

  • Delivery of marketing training and marketing and communication reviews for SAOS members
  • Knowledge of different supply chains their key stakeholders, linkages, common structural issues, and gaps
  • Knowledge of co-operative and collaborative strategies and structures and their role and purpose delivering a wide range of benefits to rural businesses
  • Society Secretary for the Milk Suppliers Association a co-op of 110 dairy farmers from southwest Scotland who deliver over 200 million litres of milk per annum to a creamery in Stranraer owned by Lactalis
  • Society Secretary to the Scottish Machinery Ring Association a forum of rural businesses which deliver over 12,000 training courses per year to rural trainees across Scotland
  • Ability to facilitate and develop groups who have a common purpose in agriculture and to identify their needs including drafting agreements and developing business plans
  • Demonstrate strategic thinking through providing support to existing collaborative enterprises to amalgamate their activities that bring greater scale and diversity to the services offered to farmers
  • Undertake feasibility evaluations across a number of sectors in the agrifood industries including, dairy, red meat and cereals
  • Katie McCubbin - Marketing and Communications Coordinator, Tarff Valley 

Katie works for Tarff Valley,  Scotland’s oldest agricultural cooperative. She graduated from Newcastle University in 2016 with a degree in Agricultural Business Management. During university breaks, she worked part-time at Tarff Valley’s Dumfries store, and in November 2016, was delighted to step into a full-time role as Communications and Marketing Coordinator at its Head Office near Castle Douglas.

Her role is diverse and keeps her on her toes—it includes managing social media, coordinating internal and external communications, organising events, developing Tarff's brand identity and more. In 2020, she completed the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s Level 6 Diploma in Professional Marketing, which gave her a deeper understanding of marketing strategies and principles. Having gained a great deal of experience during her time at Tarff, she's excited to share insights and exchange ideas at this workshop. 

Cost: £50 plus VAT

Sign up: https://buytickets.at/saos/1476303

For more information contact:

E allison.watson@saos.coop  M 07548215669