The Mackie family has been farming at Westertown Farm since 1911, where they still produce all their ice cream and chocolate. Originally a traditional dairy farm, Westertown has been upgraded over the years to be a state of the art renewably powered food manufacturing site and working farm.

In 1986, Mackie’s made its first batch of ice cream. Changing consumer tastes were leading to an increase in the popularity of skimmed and semi-skimmed milk, which led to Mackie’s having an excess of leftover cream. The business decided to put this to use in making ice cream, and Mackie’s ice cream was born. The Traditional flavour (just the wholesome taste of milk and cream) was Mackie’s first and remains extremely similar to that original recipe. Traditional has become the best-selling ice cream in Scotland, and the fourth best-selling in the UK.

Honeycomb became the first flavour to join Traditional in the core range, beginning decades of flavour innovation and becoming one of Mackie’s most iconic products.  Mackie’s has produced hundreds of flavours of ice cream over the years, trialling, testing and tweaking to choose the best to make into retail flavours.

In 2002, Mackie’s had three ice cream parlours open in Seoul. Mackie’s distinctive creaminess and lack of artificial flavouring made it a hit, particularly its best-selling “Traditional” flavour, which aligns with Korean consumers taste pallets. Following this initial success, Mackie’s approached Korean retailers, which it has been supplying ever since. Mackie’s success in Korea opened up other export markets, where it has been building presence ever since.

Mackie’s focus on sustainability as a business stretches back to 1983, when our late Chairman, Maitland Mackie, installed a small wind turbine to power the old piggery, making Mackie’s one of the first UK companies to install a grid connected wind turbine. The original turbine and the piggery no longer exist, but in their wake lies evidence of a sustained effort by Mackie’s over the intervening decades to reduce our carbon footprint.

The top of the hill on the farm overlooking the ice cream dairy now boasts four large (around 40 m tall) wind turbines, installed between 2005 and 2015, as well as 7000 solar panels over a 10-acre area which was (albeit briefly!) the largest solar farm in Scotland upon its completion in 2015. The combination of wind and solar complement one another, as the sun tends to peek out on less windy days.

In 2023 Mackie’s invested in a low carbon refrigeration system, stopping the use of harmful refrigerant gasses and making much of its cooling technology able to be fuelled by regenerative biomass.

Realising there were no Scottish producers of chocolate bars, Mackie’s channelled its sweet-treat expertise into creating delicious farm-made chocolate bars in five flavours, inspired by its ice cream range – and is now Scotland’s biggest producer of chocolate bars.

Mackie’s has invested in moulding machines, enabling it to produce all of its ice cream packaging on site at the farm, running the machines on its renewably generated power.  This saves hundreds of thousands of transport miles every year when compared with delivering pre-made packaging to the farm.

In 2017 Mackie’s opened its first UK ice cream parlour, Mackie’s 19.2 – in Aberdeen, exactly 19.2 miles from the family farm.  The parlour often sees new flavours first, providing a brilliant place to test new flavour combinations with ice cream lovers close to home.

In 2023, Mackie’s continued its sustainability focus, with a £4.5 million investment in low-carbon refrigeration, using ammonia (a natural refrigerant gas) and biomass, instead of more traditional (but harmful) refrigerant gasses. The first of its kind in Europe, the system was supported by the Low Carbon Infrastructure Transition Programme and stands as an example of Mackie’s continuing commitment to the environment.

In 2026, Mackie’s celebrates 40 years of making ice cream using fresh milk and cream in every tub.  With the youngest generation of the family now joining the business, and a strong foundation of sustainable growth, Mackie’s looks forward to the next 40 years of bringing delicious ice cream to Scotland, the UK and the world!