A Piece of Our Story – Our Local Suppliers and Crafters

When guests sit down to dinner at Fraoch Lodge, or look around the walls and floors of the Lodge, they’re tasting and touching much more than just food and fabric. They’re sharing in the story of our community. The local suppliers and crafters in the Cairngorms form an important part of our story.

Over the years, we’ve built relationships with local farmers, crafters, and makers who share our passion for the land, heritage, and good honest produce. These connections aren’t business arrangements so much as friendships, and they shape what we can offer you when you come to stay.

Food with a Sense of Place

We’ll never forget the first time we visited Lynbreck Croft. Lynn and Sandra’s enthusiasm for regenerative farming is infectious – they’ll tell you about Highland cows, pigs, and hens as if each were an old friend. Their crofting philosophy is simple: care for the land and it will care for you. Their produce has become part of our table, and every time we serve it, we know we’re also serving a slice of the Cairngorms.

On the riverbanks of Speyside, the Tulchan Estate has been part of the fabric of Highland life for centuries. When we use their beef and game, it feels like we’re connecting directly to the traditions that shaped this landscape.

Closer to home, we often pop into the Ballifurth Farm Shop in Nethybridge – it’s one of those places where you can’t leave without bumping into someone you know. (Our son, Gregor, is currently doing work experience on the farm itself.)

Our meat often comes from skilled local butchers – Grants of Speyside and Millers of Speyside – who know exactly where every cut has come from, often just over the hill. There’s something grounding about that traceability; it’s food with a face, not just a label.

Of course, not everything can be grown in the Highlands (bananas, for instance, would struggle in the Cairngorms!). That’s where Mark Murphy (Dole Group) comes in – helping us fill in the gaps sustainably, so we can still offer variety without losing sight of local first.

And then there’s one of our favourites – the Cairngorms Connect Venison Larder. Their community project supplies wild venison harvested as part of restoring the ancient Caledonian pinewoods. Serving that venison feels like being part of something bigger: good food and ecological renewal on the same fork.

Crafting Our Highlands Story

The Cairngorms aren’t just about landscapes – they’re also about hands at work. Over the years, we’ve come to know and admire a host of craftspeople who give our region its creative heartbeat.

We’ve long admired Loch Ness Clayworks, where each piece of pottery carries the ripple of water or curve of hill in its design. Similarly, the historic Knockando Wool Mill continues weaving more than just wool – it weaves two centuries of Highland story into every blanket and scarf.

3 Bags Wool in Aberlour is a place where shelves of yarn practically sing with colour and possibility. Sarah opened up a cafe in Aberlour a few years ago and we were delighted to be asked to supply to traybakes to begin with until they became more accustomed to the local demand. Sarah has also been able to offer felting and peg loom workshops which we’ve tested out for you. You’ll see evidence of our endeavours around the Lodge as all the rugs in the lounge and dotted around the rooms are hand made.

We’re excited to soon be collaborating with Learn and Create, run by the inspiring Lexy in Newtonmore, as part of our knitting retreats. Lexy has created a space where traditional skills are celebrated, shared, and reimagined – the perfect complement to our vision of learning in place.

Local woodworker Wooden Tom is another gem – his creations carry the quiet strength of the forests that surround us. Even though Speyside Pottery and Nethybridge Pottery are no longer operating, their work still lives on in many homes, including our own, a reminder of the creative culture that has always thrived here.

More Than Just Suppliers & Crafters in the Cairngorms

For us, these connections go far beyond transactions. They are friendships, collaborations, and a way of life. When you tuck into dinner at Fraoch Lodge, or when you pick up your knitting needles on one of our retreats, you’re sharing in this story too.

Our guests often tell us it’s the little details – the taste of local venison, the handmade mug, the hand-dyed wool – that stay with them long after they leave. And we think that’s the heart of it. These are not just ingredients or objects, but pieces of the Cairngorms themselves, carried home in memory.

This is why we’re so proud of the people we work with. They don’t just supply us – they help us tell the story of this place we’re lucky enough to call home.

Don’t forget that we’re running our inaugral Knitting Retreat in October 2025. We’re really excited about this trip even though it’s a departure from our traditional hiking base. We have noticed that some of our guests have brought their projects with them to wind down and relax in the evenings after hiking, so we thought why not offer the chance to start a new project of to come along with your hiking partner and while they’re out striding round the countryside, you can do what you love in the comfort of the Lodge under the expert guidance of Lexy from Learn and Create.