A quiet success story in the heart of Angus

In the rich patchwork of potato fields locally we observe a picturesque confirmation of yet another productive Angus growing season.

It’s not just potatoes, of course, in the Angus bounty but rather the full spectrum of vegetables, cereals, soft fruit and livestock producing thousands of tonnes of food for the domestic market, exports, and supplying Scotland’s vital distilling sector too.

Amidst all these riches here in the ‘Garden of Scotland’ it’s worth taking time to acknowledge the value of the potato sector and in particular the technology which underpins modern potato farming. Angus is rightly famed internationally for our preeminent quality of seed potato but it’s the ware crop that I’m focusing on here.

Long before the blossom blooms the soil is tilled with apparent millimetre accuracy into potato beds with the stones removed and replaced by the finest seed potatoes. To my engineer’s eye, there is something genuinely remarkable about freshly hewn potato fields seemingly combed to perfection into orderly drills by modern techniques. This linear accuracy is enabled by advanced de-stoners, bed formers and tillers. These powerful machines literally lay the ground for the crop until the crop will be harvested by the latest windrowers and harvesters.

Decades of knowledge and experience result in these first-class machines all designed, manufactured, maintained and continuously improved here in Angus by outstanding local engineering company ScanStone.

As an engineer representing a famously productive agricultural constituency, I wasted no time, following lockdown, in visiting ScanStone at their headquarters near Forfar. There I met with Alison Patterson, ScanStone’s export sales manager and daughter of company founder Gordon Skea.

I was privileged to receive a comprehensive tour, from fabricating steel sub-assemblies in the welding shop to their inventory management facility featuring products drawn from a supply chain across Europe. Then a quick pass through the paint shop facilities, before heading into the assembly line where these complex masters of the soil were in various stages of final production before being tested and delivered across the UK and Europe.

During my visit I observed an understated pride within the factory, whether on the shop floor or with support staff in the office. It speaks to a company culture that understands exactly what its customers need and, crucially, how to deliver against these requirements. ScanStone’s success is evidenced by their expanding network of regional offices and workshops across the UK and in the EU. A priority is ensuring they manufacture as much as possible of their supply chain keeping them in control of critical spares availability.

Working quietly from headquarters in the heart of Angus, it was a great pleasure to visit this outstanding success story and I wish them every continued success for the future .