Bothy Butter spreads north in bid to grow
An award-winning Angus food and drink business has moved production of its artisan butter from Angus to Aberdeen.
Bothy Butter, owned by Gin Bothy entrepreneur Kim Cameron, has increased its capacity fivefold since relocating to the £27 million One Seedpod centre at Craibstone.
The bright-pink building, which opened last year, boasts 11 food-safe manufacturing kitchens, product development and demonstration kitchens, and process testing spaces.
Kim said she made the move in a bid to meet growing demand from consumers, farm shops, chefs and hotels. Now, as well as the brand’s popular 200g butter logs, it will be able to produce 20g butter medallions for hospitality venues and 1kg catering blocks.
The product will still be traditionally churned and hand-crafted.
The production site on Lochside Road, Forfar, will continue making Jam Bothy products.
The expansion has already created two new roles at the Aberdeen site, filled by former members of staff from Donald Russell, the well-known Aberdeenshire butchery brand that recently went into liquidation.
Kim, 50, added butter to her portfolio in 2023 after Forfar’s North Street Dairy closed its doors. She is confident the move north will be a positive one.
The mother-of-two also has strong personal ties to the Granite City, growing up delivering meat across Aberdeen with her butcher and Gordon Highlander father.
Kim, from Kirriemuir, would also visit her granny and uncle Gerry Cameron, who managed the Marcliffe Hotel, in Aberdeen throughout her childhood.
The new site will enable Bothy Butter, the only butter producer in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Dundee and Angus, to run 100-litre batches – up from 20 litres.
Kim, best known for her Gin Bothy and Jam Bothy brands, said:
“The move to One Seedpod is a deliberate step to give the brand room to scale within a purposebuilt dairy environment.
“It is an amazing facility and we are excited to be part of it and benefit from the on-site expertise.
“We want to be able to stand proud behind our ethos of ‘ buy Bothy, buy Scottish’, which we can absolutely do here as we stay true to creating a hand-crafted product with just two ingredients, Scottish cream and salt.
“It will enable us to move into new markets and expand our product range.”
Bothy Butter already supplies significant food service providers across the UK.
It is hoped the extra capacity will open the brand up to food service at scale, an area where Scottish producers currently compete against a market dominated by French and Irish butter.
The product was born from a centuries-old tradition of Angus butter.
North Street Dairy operated for 104 years, less than a mile from Forfar’s historic butter market.
When the dairy closed, Kim bought its original butter churn, working closely with Hamish, who had run it for years.
Bothy Butter expects to make further hires as production continues to scale through the rest of the year, tapping into a skilled north east workforce.
Kim added:
“Aberdeen is in my family’s blood.
“Bringing butter production to Aberdeen, somewhere my dad loved, feels like coming home, and there’s something special about knowing Bothy Butter could be on your butteries the next morning.”
Director of One Food & Drink, Alan Thorpe said:
“We’re delighted to welcome Kim and the Bothy Butter team to One Seedpod.
“They’re now part of the entrepreneurial community here, alongside other food and drink businesses scaling up in the north-east of Scotland.
“Going from 20-litre to 100-litre batches without losing the hand- crafted process is a real step up, and exactly the ambition that One Seedpod’s foodsafe manufacturing kitchens and wraparound support were built to enable.
The brand is also building local collaborations around the new site. Buttermilk, a byproduct of the churning process, is now being purchased by The Bread Guys, an Aberdeen bakery with four shops, for use in its bread.
This article appeared in the Courier on 11 August 2026