Fourth-year Home-Economic students from Meldrum Academy, Oldmeldrum have been given a fascinating insight into milk and rapeseed oil production.

The pupils visited the Mitchell family's dairy farm at Inverurie, where they saw the 300 cows that provide milk for homes, shops, supermarkets, hotels and restaurants in an area stretching from Turriff to Huntly and Banchory and then to Portlethen.  For four generations ,Mitchells have been farming in the heart of rural Aberdeenshire. The third and fourth generation, who are currently at the helm, are as strongly committed to providing the very best locally produced milk and cream from their very own Mitchell family cows as the founders Elijah and Agnes Mitchell. General Manager, Keith Whyte, gave the students a tour of Inveramsay Farm where the milk is processed before taking them to Drimmies Farm where the dairy herd is looked after by father and son Sandy and Roy Mitchell.  The Mitchells have been delivering milk for 82 years. It is one of the few firms still making home deliveries and has six rounds in and around Inverurie.

John Sorrie who, with his wife, Connie, runs Ola Oils, has also visited the school to tell the pupils about rapeseed oil.. The word Ola is gaelic for oil. They produce cold-pressed extra virgin rapeseed oil from the oilseed rape they grow on their farm at Inverurie. He explained the processes involved and then invited the students to visit the farm so that they could see how the oil is extracted and produced from the oilseed rape seeds.

Meldrum home economics teacher Anne Wyness said the pupils had enjoyed swapping the classroom for the farmyard to see how milk and rapeseed oil are produced, as well as learn about the processing, packaging and labelling that is involved.  She said the visits fitted in well with the health and wellbeing part of the curriculum as they had the helped the students gain a better understanding of nutrition, safe hygiene and how firms target consumers.

For more inspiring ideas about how to integrate British food into the Curriculum, see the Love British Food resource guide Putting the Ooo! back into food.