She runs a farm, makes exceptional dairy products and has a thriving interiors business and a flourishing garden – and that’s just for starters
“I‘m no ordinary farmer’s wife,” chuckles Katy Rodger. She has been up and working since 5am, shifting a dozen or more 50-litre cans of milk by hand before most of us have even hit the snooze button. “I move it like this because it’s the most hygienic way – there’s less chance of contamination.”
Everything at Knockraich Farm is made to order, so after this she might go on to churn butter or make a batch of crème fraîche. By 8am, she will head back inside and grab 30 minutes of ‘quiet time’.
“Once I’ve finished in the dairy, I come home and run a bath – not a shower – because I just need that time to myself to clear my head and get ready for the rest of the day. Then, I put on my makeup, do my hair, get dressed and head to the workroom.”
Katy’s day-to-day is as diverse as it gets. She and her husband Robert, together with their family, run Knockraich, a 100-acre farm near Fintry, between Glasgow and Stirling.
Robert manages the animals (60 Friesian cows) and Katy runs Making Interiors, the interior design and soft furnishings business she set up in an outbuilding more than 20 years ago. Their daughter Catherine runs the farm’s Courtyard Cafe, while daughter Helena oversees the business, working across accounts and payroll, and son Ian, a vet, has control of the orchard.
In addition to the dairy, interiors showroom and cafe, the farm is also home to the Tin Shed wedding venue, as well as a glasshouse, two self-catering apartments and extensive gardens, all tended to by the Rodger family, with Katy at the helm.
“When I was young, I didn’t get the grades to go to art school, but I could sew,” she recalls. “I’ve always had ideas, and if I wanted to try something I would give it a go, and keep at it until I could work it out.”
It’s this entrepreneurial spirit that spurs Knockraich Farm on. Sitting in the glasshouse, which was built just last year by Katy’s son-in-law Drew (“I just show him pictures of things I like and ask him to build them!”), she recounts the celebrations here for her granddaughter’s 21st birthday recently. “She turned to me and said, ‘Gran, I can’t believe we live here’.”
It’s certainly a dreamy idyll now, but it has taken hard graft and constant evolution to keep the farm flourishing – and a lot of can-do spirit.
Watching TV one Thursday, Katy saw a segment on making ice-cream. By Monday, she’d sourced the necessary equipment and had begun experimenting with that morning’s milk.
It was a similar story when she started making her own yogurt and crème fraîche, both of which went on to win product of the year at Scotland’s food and drink awards in 2012. That was a major turning point, as she recalls. “The very next day, all the supermarkets were on the phone, asking if they could stock my range!”
Today, she supplies dairy produce to some of the best restaurants in Scotland and counts many of the country’s top chefs among her admirers. The late Albert Roux and Andrew Fairlie were both fans. “I’ve always wanted the best,” she smiles. “I see things I like on televison or in magazines – I still tear pages out of magazines when I spot something really good – and I think about how I can make them for myself.”
This was exactly how she crossed paths with the globally renowned garden designer Arabella Lennox-Boyd.
Flicking through the pages of Country Life, Katy read about the Italianborn designer, who is a favourite at the Chelsea Flower Show. “I don’t know what came over me,” she laughs, “but I just picked up the phone and called her office, asking if she would design my garden.
She sent one of her team up to have a look and, even though it was eye-wateringly expensive, she did a drawing (now framed and hanging in the glasshouse), and that’s exactly how the garden and orchard have been laid out.”
