Scotland's Wild Larder: Seabuckthorn & more. Interview: Kirstie Campbell Seabuckthorn Scotland

As consumers increasingly consider the environment and become more keen to eat fresh local produce and connect with natural landscapes, foraging is having a revival. GreenBurgh spoke to Kirstie Campbell from Seabuckthorn Scotland about her business and the advantages of foraged ingredients.

A great variety of food can be found throughout Scotland’s rich and diverse landscape including in woodland and on seashores. Scotland’s ‘wild larder’ is bursting with ingredients including wild berries such as sloe, rowan and juniper as well as wild mushrooms and seaweed on the coast.

Kirstie Campbell has turned her passion for foraging and the native plant seabuckthorn into a business. Seabuckthorn Scotland, work alongside East Lothian Council to help manage the plant in areas where it is becoming invasive and have been granted a permit for commercial use of the berries they harvest.

Kirstie explained that:

‘Our aim is to take a plant that is otherwise wasted and prepare it into high quality nutritious drinks which people who don’t have time to forage themselves can enjoy!’

Photo credit: Becky OpenAye

Wild ingredients are highly nutritious and would have featured heavily in the ancient diets of our ancestors as part of a sustenance diet.

Kirstie told us:

'It fascinates me that seabuckthorn, which is incredibly high in vitamin C as well as A and E and which contains omegas: 3,6,7 and 9, has grown in the uk since the pre glacial times and was undoubtedly part of the Picktish diet but it’s use has been forgotten about or lost in recent generations'.

'This may be partially due to the sourness of the berries which is only just coming back into fashion in Scotland as people become more aware of what they are putting into their bodies'.

The company have witnessed an increased consumer desire for food that has little impact on the planet.

Kirstie said:

'We have found that our customers are very mindful of the provenance of their food as well as the packaging. The juice we make has a minimal carbon footprint as it is gathered and processed locally and has travelled only the distance from the beach to the market. We like to think it has the carbon footprint of an otter!'

Whilst Kirstie sources a costal ingredient, the city of Edinburgh itself provides plenty opportunity for urban foraging particuarly around the Water of Leith. where a number of wild ingredients including wild garlic can be found. A number of restaurants including Wedgwood use foraged innovative ingredients, favoured for the concentration of flaour they have.

Seabuckthorn Scotland curently supply Panda and Sons on Queen Street and Nauticus in Leith and is stocked in the Eco Larder and the Refillery.