A trio of long-serving Mackie’s of Scotland employees have clocked up nearly 100 years of work between them.
Lesley Skene, Heather Bowie and Bill Thain have all been recognised by the Aberdeenshire family business for their hard work and dedication.
And they all have their own special memories from their time at Mackie’s, based near Rothienorman.
From securing deals to sell ice cream at the 2002 football World Cup in South Korea to switching from milking cows to using robotics, there’s been some changes over the years.
Grandmother-of-three Lesley Skene joined Mackie’s in 1984 and is believed to be the longest-serving member of staff.
She has the very important role of making sure all 92 employees are paid, as well as being in charge of looking after the farm’s paperwork and personnel records.
Ms Skene, who lives in Oldmeldrum, said: “I ensure everyone is paid each month, so I’m the person everybody looks forward to hearing from every four weeks.
“When I first arrived at Mackie’s my job was a receptionist.
“Shortly after I took on a new role of what we’d call ‘the Milkies’ books’. This involved organising all the milk deliveries and invoices.
“I had my children during this time so was lucky enough to work around this, working in evenings and different shifts to help manage childcare.”
Helping hand
Ms Skene was also no stranger to helping out on the farm, when needed.
She said: “I had an office in the byre for a couple years – at any point it was a case of putting on my boiler suit and helping the team.
“I would also help out with feeding the calves every second weekend.
“I’ve even had to spend some time packing ice cream in the busier periods.
“I enjoy my varied role – I’m not sat at my desk from 9am-5pm.
“I’m up and about around the byre and in the ice cream factory.”
Move to robotics
In 2001 the business was one of the first in the area to invest in a robotic milking system and seven years ago it upgraded to five Leley Astronaut A4 models.
Mother-of-two Ms Skene said: “There have been a lot of changes.
“When I first started here Mackie’s was a milk retail and delivery business.
“We had the bottling plant and delivery lorries here at Westertown and there were three other dairy farms across Aberdeenshire we had for supplying milk.
“We also had two piggeries and an egg grader, with the milkmen also delivering eggs on their rounds.
“In 1986 we moved into the world of ice cream and gradually ceased milk deliveries – now all our milk goes into the ice cream.
“In 2001 we had to make up collars for all the cows when we introduced robotic milking. It was around 300 cows and we had to enter all the collar numbers into the computer.”
National deals in the bag
Mr Thain joined Mackie’s in August 1999 after graduating from Robert Gordon University. His job was to create a system that would record and analyse sales.
He is now a national account manager, looking after major customers such as Tesco, Morrisons, Waitrose, Lidl, Marks and Spencer and Iceland.
The 46-year-old said: “My first venture into sales was around 2008 and I remember securing my first national listings in wholesalers.
“Another highlight has to be landing a deal with Marks & Spencer’s in 2019. We had been trying for a while and when we finally secured the listing it made me really proud.”
World Cup deals
The Blackburn resident has seen the company grow and diversify over the years.
He said: “One aspect of the business which has grown significantly is exports. I remember Mackie’s first ever export – and it was a big one.
“We got the rights to supply ice cream at the 2002 Fifa World Cup in South Korea.
“It evolved from there to other wholesale businesses in South Korea, and then expanded to Taiwan, China and so on.
“Other than that, the size of the company has grown significantly.
“Whereas it was once solely ice cream, we have extended out to new products such as chocolate and crisps.
‘Rewarding’ role
Ms Bowie has been with the company since April 1993.
The 51-year-old’s role sees her feeding and looking after calves from newborn to two years old.
She also spent five years at the piggery before joining the byre.
Ms Bowie, who lives in Rothienorman, said: “I look after the calves which will become the next generation of milking cows for the ice cream.
“The most rewarding part is seeing the calves grow and do well and my favourite thing is I can be left on my own to just get on with the job.
“The biggest changes would be the move from parlour milking to robotic, and seeing the calves being machine fed instead of individually fed.”
Mackie’s staff go ‘above and beyond’ call of duty
Ms Skene, Ms Bowie and Mr Thain now each have a plaque on the dairy wall to mark their long service.
Mackie’s chairman Mac Mackie said: “We are extremely fortunate to have so many good people working at Mackie’s who so often go above and beyond the call of duty.
“It really is like one big family; made up of an energetic workforce who learn and adapt to industries which are constantly changing.
“The loyalty and hard work exhibited by Bill, Heather, Lesley and a significant number of other long-serving personnel across the business were recognised, celebrated and rewarded at a recent staff day out – we’re lucky to continue to benefit from the experience of all of our long-serving staff.”
Conversation