Twenty-three years old Gregor Mackintosh is the founder of Mackintosh of Glendaveny.
Greg started the company in April 2009. Mackintosh of Glendaveny produces cold pressed rapeseed oil from Gregor’s family farm in Glendaveny, near Peterhead.
Cold pressed rapeseed has the lowest saturated fat content of any other oil on the market, it's rich in omega 3 and has far superior nutritional values and cooking qualities compared to olive oil.
Gregor, who graduated from SAC (Scotish Agricultural college) in 2008 with a BSc Honours in Agriculture started playing with the idea of diversifying his home farm during his final year at SAC.
He said "During my fourth year at SAC we had a study tour to the Netherlands where I was impressed how farmers could make a living from a small acreage through producing high value produce".
Gregor who comes from a family with an agricultural background, his family had been growing oilseed rape on the farm for more than 20 years, although he never gave much thought into the trade or where this produce then went other than its purpose for vegetable oil and biofuel.
Things started to become apparent when during his dissertation in his fourth year, he started to play around with the possibility of starting a business on the family farm, exploring different options with only the idea of producing Extra Virgin "cold pressed" rapeseed oil sticking.
After further research, he started to realise the potential and see how viable the business was. Finally something he could do, after he finished his dissertation, he was convinced he could make the idea work and turn it into a business.
To get the business off the ground, Gregor was awarded a £5,000 grant and a low interest loan by Business Gateway which enabled him funding enabled him to start production.
The company has continued to grow from strength to strength, in recent months, the company celebrated a deal which enables them to supply rapeseed oil to every Asda supermarket in Scotland.
The company has since invested about £50,000 in upgrading the facilities including a 24-hour extraction system, new employees, new bottling line and storage tanks to keep up to with the recent demands.
Speaking about the deal, he said “The five figure deal is a fantastic achievement and one I’m very proud off, particularly because it’s helped the company meet its five year growth targets in just 24 months,”
“Asda has been fantastic to work with and is very enthusiastic, saying the ‘sky is the limit’ for the product which is very encouraging.”
The company is quickly becoming a major competition in its industry, especially in scotland.
