Profile
Jane Brand and her family are 4th generation farmers at East Fortune Farm, striving to breed the best quality outdoor reared East Lothian pork and lamb. In 2018 the family opened ‘The Brand Family Larder’ farm shop at East Fortune to enable them to sell their own produce from the freshly laid eggs to our home reared pork and lamb as well as fruit and vegetables grown on the farm and other delicious items of locally sourced artisanal produce. Son Robert (pictured) tends to the ducks and their eggs! RBST Sustainable Food Producer of the Year 2023 [Joint winner with Jane Cooper of Orkney Boreray Community]. Also now with an additional onsite monthly farmers’ market.
The Brand Family are award winning breeders of Hampshire Down sheep, breeding pedigree lambs in December followed by Lleyn cross ewes lambing in April. In addition to the sheep they rear outdoor, a Saddleback pig herd maturing slowly, selling to customers via their farm shop as well as restaurants in Edinburgh and the Lothian’s. These include The Balmoral Hotel, Fhior & L’Escargot Bleu, where the chefs are proud to share the provenance of the produce with their customers. The farm is also home to 330 free range hens and a growing flock of ducks.
They have diversified to include two caravan parks on the farm, STATION PARK and EAST FORTUNE CERTIFIED LOCATION (CL) which have been providing relaxing breaks in rural East Lothian since 2002 with families enjoying the rural surroundings… and very handy produce to enjoy.
Photo credits for some of photos: Brand family
The Brand Family won an award for their Saddleback Pork Rack from at the Great Taste Awards 2022 and “to say we are thrilled is a bit of an understatement.
More than 14,000 products were put through the competition’s rigorous blind judging process; and our pork rack was described as “Good ratio of fat to meat, great aroma, cuts really well, is very tender and looks very moist. Very tasty and the fat is very good, the meat not watery and with good texture. The meat is really well flavoured. You can tell it’s from a quality animal”, this pork rack was a big hit with the Great Taste judges. 4,078 products were awarded a Great Taste 1-star so you can imagine how delighted the family are to be one of those ‘food oscar’ winning products! ”
