For the past three years, independent Scottish butchers have enthusiastically supported local pig producers with a coordinated drive to promote Scottish pork throughout October.
The innovative ‘Porktober’ campaign – which took home the Marketing Initiative of the Year award at the 2024 National Pig Awards – carries a strong ‘buy Scottish’ message and came about due to the Covid pandemic and the ensuing pig industry crisis.
Scottish Craft Butchers and Scottish Pig Producers have worked together to launch and evolve the highly successful campaign, with more organisations getting involved each year.
The results include a 26.4% increase in pork sales during the Porktober 2024 campaign.
Scotland’s 400 independent craft butchers are a key outlet for home-produced pork and during Porktober, they highlight pork’s nutritional value, versatility and value for money.
It helps drive demand across the whole supply chain and the fact that so many craft butchers continue to get behind the campaign has provided a valuable morale boost to pig producers.
Industry structure
About half of pig production in Scotland is in outdoor systems, similar to the English sector. There is currently just one major pork processing plant in Scotland at Brechin, now owned by Browns Food Group.
Independent pig producers market their pigs through one of the two producer cooperatives, with Scotlean covering southern Scotland and northern England, while Scottish Pig Producers’ members are mainly in the north of Scotland and Northern Ireland.
“There is not much competition, with few outlets for producers to sell their pigs, but there are also benefits,” said Andy McGowan, managing director at Scottish Pig Producers.
“There is a lot of collaboration between producers, processing companies and independent butchers.”
For example, in 2016, the Brechin abattoir reopened after a major redevelopment to provide a large, modern pork processing facility for Scotland – the result of a joint venture between Scotlean, Scottish Pig Producers and Tulip, the site owner at
the time.
Producers and processors also work with QMS to closely align on industry initiatives, ranging from consumer marketing campaigns to pig health improvement, with Scottish producers having shared herd health information for a decade now.
Change and opportunities
Following the impact of the Covid pandemic, in 2021 the throughput of pigs at the Brechin abattoir was halved and the facility, then owned by Pilgrim’s, looked set to close.
“It was critical for us to find a new buyer to take it on, as shutting an abattoir means you lose the staff and it usually never opens again,” said Andy.
“Scottish Pig Producers and Scotlean teamed up to develop a viable range of options to present to Pilgrim’s, including the possibility of running it ourselves. Browns Food Group showed a positive interest early on and bought it.
“Browns already had a significant footprint in secondary product processing. They already had a high requirement for pork legs and saw that taking greater control of their raw materials made sense.”
Looking back 15 years, Scotland was 50% self-sufficient in pork, marketed under Scottish branding. After the Broxburn abattoir closed in 2013, self-sufficiency fell to 12%, with many pigs having to be marketed via abattoirs south of the border.
Since then, consumer demand for Scottish pork has grown to a greater level than when the country was able to supply 50% of its own pork, with the independence referendum and Covid having a significant effect on consumer demand for home-produced produce.
“So, we have the opportunity to grow our share of supply to what is a significant regional market without treading on the toes of suppliers in the rest of the UK,” Andy explained.
Porktober launch
During the Covid crisis, stakeholders from across the Scottish red meat industry were having daily online meetings, recalls Gordon King, executive manager of Scottish Craft Butchers.
“Our members were actually doing quite well, because in times of adversity consumers tend to default to what they know is safe,” he said.
“I asked what we could do to help pig producers, who were really struggling. I’d thought before about the fact we had Scotch Lamb and Scotch Beef week, but no specific campaign for pork, and spoke to Andy about the idea of running a ‘Porktober’ campaign to encourage consumers to buy Scottish pork.”
A student designed some promotional material for butchers to display in store and the resulting pumpkin pork heads imagery was central to the first Porktober campaign in October 2022.
The campaign timing was also linked with the Fiver Fest initiative, in which independent businesses across the UK offer £5 deals to customers.
“Year one was quite low-key, but the public really liked the concept and, in year two, Porktober gained more traction,” Gordon said. “National Craft Butchers asked if they could join us in the campaign, using a wider ‘buy local’ message. QMS also quickly got involved and helped enable others to take part.”
Pork product innovation
To build on the success of the first two years, for Porktober 2024 they invited members to develop novel value-added products to enter in a ‘Make it with Pork’ competition.
“There were Gold, Silver and Bronze award winners and these butchers were able to use this to help promote their pork products during the campaign,” Gordon explained.
“Andy was one of the judges and was hugely impressed with the imagination and flair shown by the entrants.”
The overall national winner was a ‘Truffled hog’ product from Boness butchers Thomas Burns & Son: a pig shaped from sausage meat, with cheese ears and a truffle sauce.
Many butchers ran special offers to really push pork sales throughout the month, and the pumpkin pork heads bunting remained popular.
“We provided campaign images for members to use on social media and to display on their digital screens and scales in store, along with printed Porktober posters.” said Gordon.
“For 2024, we sent out a comprehensive marketing plan to support butchers’ planning for Porktober, courtesy of Mark Turnbull from Turnbulls Food Hall in Alnwick.”
It included guidance with ideas ranging from ‘dish of the day’ to tasting stations, along with plans for campaign build-up, launch and follow-up.
Looking ahead
“Our plan is to keep growing Porktober gradually,” said Gordon. “It’s not just about Scottish Pig Producers and Scottish Craft Butchers. More partners are getting involved each year and recognition should go to others who have brought ideas and advice to the table.”
Suppliers to the independent butchers have joined in, too – for example, Robertsons offered special deals to its butcher customers. And next year’s plans include a QMS-led sausage competition in schools.
“We like the fact that Porktober provides something unique for independent retailers,” said Andy. “Alongside that, Browns is coming up with its own branding for pork sold through the major supermarkets such as Aldi and Lidl, which already sell Scottish pork under the Specially Selected Pork logo.”
Encouraging generation Z to buy more Scottish pork will be important, Andy and Gordon agree. “I think the fact craft butchers continue to be innovative is encouraging the younger generation,” Gordon said.
“If we can get young people on board with making sure the pork they buy is locally sourced, it will help us continue to build demand.”
Overall, the Scottish industry is now in a better place than in recent years.
“It’s still a work in progress, but Browns has developed our processing capabilities well, with factory throughput and supply to the major retailers steadily increasing,” said Andy.
“There has been a bit more margin in pig production over the past couple of years, which is helping and, longer term, we’re trying to remove some of the volatility,” Andy continued.
“Our aim is for a self-sufficient Scottish market, locally supplied, so everyone in the chain can make a profit and not at the expense of anyone else.”
