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

Our work centres on facilitating farmers and food and drink businesses to work together effectively. Over the years we've developed several subsidiary businesses - getting the right people together and making innovative advancements to help benefit the entire food and farming industry 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.

Coming soon!

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

Quarterly Newsletters

Annual reports

Innovation

Innovation is a key area of focus for SAOS but we know very well that it’s far from easy just to ‘do it’.

Work with our members has showed that ‘getting started’ was deemed the hardest part of the innovation process and that getting ‘the right support’ is a major advantage they feel SAOS can provide.

How do we help?

We can provide the support to get you started with the innovation process in a number of ways. Through our Fit4 Climate Change innovation work, we are exploring how we can support our co ops respond to opportunities and challenges that Climate Change brings in a more innovative way.

Why is innovation important?

According to our members, innovation is vital for many reasons but the essence of these boils down to ‘keeping ahead of the game’, staying ‘relevant, new and fresh’, and as a way to ‘future proof the business’.

Find out more

What does innovation look like?

Co‑operation and co‑ops are ideally placed to drive forward innovation and supply chain relationships that enable shared risk-taking and scalability, both amongst farmers and in their connections with supply chain customers.

Find out more