The Scotsman at the Royal Highland Show: Rosalind Erskine meets Robert Graham from Graham's Dairy
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00:00I'm Rosalind Erskine, Food and Drink Editor at the Scotsman and we're in Scotland's
00:13Larder at the Royal Highland Show on the first day. I'm joined by Robert Graham from
00:17Graham's and Family Dairy. Hi Robert. Hi Rosalind, how are you? Good, how are you? I'm good thanks, good.
00:21Are you excited to be back here? I love it, I love it. Even just coming in this
00:25morning to the show, first day, coming in early, always is a great buzz. Seeing our
00:31tent, seeing our display, seeing other people in agriculture, seeing customers, I love it.
00:37Every year it's brilliant just coming here. Have you guys been here for a long time? So
00:43I would have come here as a kid. I was talking to Dad earlier, my Dad's 83, so he's never
00:50ever missed a Highland Show. So yeah, it's always been part of our story as a family.
01:00Even before dairy was as big and we had a stand originally in here, now we have a big
01:03stand across the road. We've been coming to see our cattle being judged, we've had cattle
01:09being judged this year, as well as all our dairy business. So it's always been part of
01:14our history and part of our family rituals and traditions, this Highland Show. Even my
01:19kids, they both come every year and my son's coming tomorrow, so yeah, it's really good.
01:27Is that what makes it special for you guys, because it's such a family thing? I think
01:33the family bit, we have a family history of coming as a family from kids. I think our
01:40business being farmers, originally still farmers, still milking cows, but then having a business
01:49that's so connected to agriculture in Scotland, is the most important show for us, because
01:57of all of that, whether that's family history, ritual, or business, or seeing our farmer
02:02suppliers or other people involved in other agri-businesses like us. Yeah, it's really
02:09important, it's a great few days. You talked about you've got some cows being judged. I've
02:14never been here before, so what does that entail? So we have beef cattle being judged
02:21today and we have dairy cattle being judged tomorrow. So our beef breed is called Limousines,
02:27so you look for certain aspects to a beef animal. We want them to have a good backside,
02:40almost like a Brazilian butt lift at the back, a long, well-sprung back, and then actually
02:46in dairy cows you want them to be sharper across the shoulder, as well as your cattle
02:54having a little bit of character in terms of how they come out of the show. So it's
02:57something we've always done, my dad's very passionate about it, so it's good to have
03:03the cattle here again this year. Nice. And you've got your own tent, so what can people
03:08expect when they come to see you guys? So it's even just interesting for me to go to
03:14our tent because we have all these products we make at different sites and different dairies
03:20in Scotland, so even I don't really see them all together very often, so coming to the
03:26stand at our tent you see almost all the products we do in one place. It gives a really good
03:34visual representation of what we do as a business, you can see some of our more traditional
03:40products like milk and cream and gold top, as well as more recent products like our protein
03:46yoghurts, protein pouches, and we've also got our Greek yoghurt pouches that we've actually
03:52sold to, we're just launching in shops I think tomorrow, so you actually can see and try
03:58something that's not even in store yet, so you can see a full range and also get a feel
04:05for our business and our history and our farming background. And you're running a competition
04:11to decide a new flavour, is that right? We are, it's a brilliant idea I think having
04:19that competition, there's obviously lots of competitions, there's the Euros and the Olympics
04:24coming up and we've got our own competition for picking the next, a potential next flavour
04:30for our protein yoghurts. Well I'm going to go along and find out more about that in a
04:37minute, but thank you very much Robert for your time. Good, awesome, thank you.