Mackie's
Scottish ice cream and confectionery manufacturer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mackie's Limited, trading as Mackie's of Scotland, is a Scottish ice cream and confectionery manufacturer based in Rothienorman, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.[3] It was founded in 1912[4] as a dairy farm but diversified into the manufacture of ice cream in 1986, before selling the milk retail business to Robert Wiseman during 1997.[5]
Entrance to Mackie's farm in Westertown | |
| Mackie's of Scotland | |
| Formerly | Mackies Aberdeen Dairy Company Limited (1954–1995)[1] |
| Company type | Private |
| Industry | |
| Headquarters | Rothienorman, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, UK |
| Revenue |  £20.8 million (2023[2]) |
| £1.3 million[2] | |
In 2009 a partnership was formed with a Tayside potato farming family, the Taylors, to produce crisps, marketed under the name of Mackie's at Taypack.[6] In 2022, the Taylor family purchased Mackie's shares in the crisp business.[7] The manufacture of chocolate on the Mackie farm in Aberdeenshire began in 2014.[6]
Ice cream
Mackie's of Scotland makes all of its ice cream on the family farm in Aberdeenshire using fresh, whole milk.[8] The farm holds 330 cows and produces over 10 million litres of ice cream a year.[3] A range of flavours are available in the Classic range, including: Traditional, Honeycomb, Chocolate, Organic and Raspberry Ripple. In the Indulgent range are: Salted Caramel, Madagascan Vanilla and Chocolate Orange & Honeycomb.[9] Mackie's first began ice cream production in 1986.[10]
Mackie's of Scotland is best known for its Traditional flavour ice cream, which is Scotland's best selling ice cream.[11]
Chocolate
Mackie's of Scotland has been manufacturing chocolate on the farm since 2014, producing five flavours inspired by the flavours of its ice cream range: Traditional, Honeycomb, Orange, Dark and Mint.[12]
Renewable energy initiatives
Mackie's of Scotland was an early adopter of renewable energy, installing its first 850kW turbine in 2005, having first trialled the idea with a smaller grid-connected turbine as far back as 1983.[13] The firm produces more than twice as much energy as it uses, feeding the excess energy back to the UK grid.[14] The farm's main source of renewable energy is wind, with four wind turbines and a total capacity of 3 MW. Annually, the wind turbines generate 8570 MWh on average, which is roughly equivalent to the amount of energy required to power over 2000 UK homes.[14]
The farm has a 10-acre site of solar panels with a capacity of 1.8 MW, a smaller array of solar panels on the byre roof and a biomass plant which produces a further 400 kW of heating power for the farm's office and houses.[15] The solar panels help to complement the wind energy harvested by the farm, particularly in the sunnier summer months of the year when it is less windy.[14]
Between 2021 and 2022, Mackie's of Scotland installed a low-carbon refrigeration system which uses the heat from a biomass boiler to be help freeze the ice cream made on site.[14] The new system will use biomass heat and ammonia, a natural refrigerant gas with no climate warming threat to cool the ice cream.[citation needed]
Ice cream parlour
In 2017, the company opened its first ice cream parlour, Mackies 19.2, in Marischal Square, Aberdeen.[16] The parlour is named for being located 19.2 miles from the family farm.