New partnership ‘will produce outstanding products’

Representatives from all parties involved in Borders Growers and Distillers pictured at the launch event.

Simpsons Malt has teamed up with The Borders Distillery and 12 farming businesses in the Scottish Borders to launch Borders Growers and Distillers.

The 12 growers will supply high-quality malting barley to Simpsons Malt, who will in turn move, store and then produce distilling malt and subsequently deliver it to The Borders Distillery in Hawick.

At the start of each season, each grower will receive their certified malting barley seed from McCreath Simpson & Prentice, the agricultural merchanting division of Simpsons Malt.

Tim McCreath, the company’s managing director, said: “Through our unique company infrastructure comprising merchanting, grain storage and malting, we are able to offer complete visibility throughout the malting barley supply chain.”

He added that through Borders Growers and Distillers, there is traceability of the process from seed to spirit within a 40-mile radius.

After harvest, the barley will be moved from the farms by Simpsons Malt’s haulage fleet to a designated barley store for Borders Growers and Distillers at the company’s Craigswalls Grain Store, located between Chirnside and Duns in the Borders.

Following a period in storage, the barley will then be transported ten miles east to the company’s Tweed Valley Maltings headquarters for malt production, before the finished product is delivered via bulk wagon load to The Borders Distillery.

Once at the distillery, The Borders team will mill, mash and distil this homegrown barley to create their award-winning Puffing Billy Steam Vodka and Kerr’s Borders Gin, as well as future Single Malt Whisky – first to be produced in the Borders since 1837.

John Fordyce, The Borders Distillery managing director, said: “We are delighted to be collaborating with Simpsons Malt and these 12 Scottish Borders farms.

“Moving forward, Borders Growers and Distillers will work together to produce outstanding products in a rapidly changing and challenging environment, and it’s incredibly important and powerful to us for our consumers to know that the spirits they are drinking are made from locally-sourced raw materials.”