Who We Are
The Team
Food from Farming and the wider team bring together their breadth of experience and expertise to support food and farming businesses whilst sticking to our ethos of collaboration, sustainability, locality and enhancing circular economies.
Read more about our sustainability here.
Sheena
Sheena has been involved in agriculture all her life and on returning home to Galloway, diversified into growing chillies and more recently into a range of hardy herbs. It is through the chilli growing business that Sheena developed a growing network of food and drink businesses throughout Scotland. She is a firm believer in developing skills, collaboration and the circular economy which led her to setting up Food from Farming, a second business to enable her to do this and advise others.
She believes strongly in the locality and seasonality of food and drink, which is founded from her farming background and passion for sustainability and the benefits this brings to local and rural economies. These skills are currently being used in her role as the business manager of the regional food and drink group in Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Manager of the Farming Community Network.
She also holds a bat licence and from May to October works all hours, quite often surveying late at night working with a local ecology business and doing something that she loves.
In the summer of 2020 Sheena founded #Run1000, a fundraising event held throughout January highlighting the positive effects that both running and walking have on your mental as well as physical health while raising funds for rural mental health charities. She continues to run and enter events regularly, pushing herself out of her comfort zone and challenging herself.
She is a director of the Oxford Farming Conference, the vice-chair of The Crichton Trust board, a trustee of The Solway Firth Partnership, a graduate of the Scottish Enterprise Rural Leadership Programme, a trustee of the DPJ Foundation and a member of the Dumfries and Galloway Local Employability and Skills Partnership.
Need support or advice then please don’t hesitate in getting in touch with her.
Rachel
Rachel is an experienced leader in the third and public sector. Skilled at working in partnerships with charities, local authorities, philanthropists, and the Scottish (and English) Government during my career.
An excellent networker who makes and maintains connections readily. She combines this with an ability for strategic thinking, which has supported developing and delivering on opportunities, growing activities, and achieving strategic ambitions. I have a track record in successfully sourcing and managing and delivering multi-million-pound investments from Government, philanthropic and council contracts.Living rurally throughout her career as, until recently, a tenant farmer (beef and sheep).
Vicky
Vicky is the founder of McDowell Partnerships, a consultancy that supports agricultural, rural and food based businesses to strengthen their foundations and create sustainable growth, working with businesses who are experiencing, or need to experience, change. She focuses on collaborative, customer centred and commercially balanced support that helps organisations move forward with confidence. She can deliver bespoke and specific projects, short and long term support and partnership and interim leadership and management.
She has spent the last decade working across the agri rural and land based sector, building deep experience through senior roles at SAC Consulting and Scottish Sea Farms. A graduate of the Scottish Rural Leadership Programme, she is committed to developing rural leaders through her work as a Board Trustee and as a volunteer with TwoCan Mentoring. She also supports the #NipItInTheBud campaign with Farming Community Network and Macmillan Cancer Support, encouraging early health conversations within farming communities.
Vicky began her career in retail, progressing from hands on roles into training, contract negotiation, operational improvement and product development. She later joined Glasgow Airport in a leadership position, further strengthening her commercial, people development and organisational change expertise. Working across public and private sectors, and in both business to business and business to consumer settings, she has become known for connecting people, navigating complex challenges and spotting the links that help a business thrive.
Vicky lives in Stirlingshire with her husband, two teenage boys, Willow the Australian Labradoodle and Lily the grumpy tabby. She also serves as a Board Trustee for the National Navigation Award Scheme, although her family would argue this has not improved her ability to find the way home while running the family taxi service. They enjoy time together on mountain bike trails, with varying levels of skill and courage.
Eilidh
Eilidh has always been impassioned by the food and drink industry, she gained a First-Class Honours Degree in Food and Consumer Science. Her time at university enhanced her love for the industry. From working within a new product development department to investigating the application of peas for alcoholic fermentation and distillation, as well as various modules covering sensory evaluation, marketing and food processing, she gained numerous key skills. Eager to transfer her knowledge, she obtained employment within the quality department at a food factory.
She has been a foodie since day 1. Growing up in a rural community catalysed her passion and keen interest for food. Eilidh remembers going out to a local restaurant when she was about 10 and refusing the children’s menu with the response…” No thank you, I’ll have the fillet steak, rare, with chips and whisky sauce please”.
She believes food isn’t only necessary for survival, but it brings happiness. Food can bring people closer together, create smiles around the whole dinner table and warm the heart when you’re needing it most.
Falling into the millennial/Gen Z bracket, she’s been brought up with the advancement of the internet and growth of social media. Eilidh is a huge fan of the creative and marketing side of social media and has completed multiple digital marketing courses.
In her spare time, she loves baking and decorating cakes, exploring new places and going out for meals with loved ones.
Being able to help you within your business by sharing her passions is a dream come true and she looks forward to working together.
Sophie
Sophie specialises in social media management and content creation for food, drink, hospitality and tourism businesses. She has a genuine love for social media and enjoys creating engaging, down-to-earth content that helps brands connect with people in an authentic way.
With experience across Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, Sophie is passionate about using social media as a storytelling platform. She’s driven by helping audiences understand the real people, values and personality behind a business—building trust that naturally leads to stronger interactions and growth. She especially enjoys working at events, capturing real-time content and sharing updates throughout the day, as well as running targeted marketing campaigns for product launches, competitions and special announcements.
Sophie’s current clients include a Scotland Food & Drink regional food group, an exclusive-use wedding venue, a yoga teacher, a Scottish bakery and several other fantastic independent businesses. With over six years of digital marketing experience, she still lights up when capturing content—whether it’s video, photography or crisp, high-quality audio recorded with her lapel mics.
Outside of work, Sophie loves wild swimming and getting outdoors with her family. Her passion for food runs deep and began in her teenage years, when her mum enrolled her in a Junior Chef’s course with Chef Tim Bilton. She later built on this interest through a degree in Sport, Health, Exercise and Nutrition.
Sophie’s love of food, people and storytelling also inspired her to create two blogs: @sofoodieadventures, her foodie blog, and @somantra, her lifestyle space where she shares family adventures and home cooking.
Food from Farming is passionate about sustainability, and that commitment has been acknowledged by the Galloway and Southern Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere. Biospheres are the only internationally recognised ‘badge’ for demonstrating excellence in sustainable development.