Anja Baak, Great Glen Charcuterie from the Netherlands

The perfect place to live and work

Anja Baak, originally from the Netherlands, set up her family-owned business, the Great Glen Charcuterie with her husband, Jan Jacob. The business is based in Roy Bridge in the Scottish Highlands and started after the family moved to Scotland and fell in love with the local produce.

They use sustainably sourced venison form the local area and products include venison salami, chorizo, and gift boxes. Their products are made using traditional, artisan methods and are gluten and lactose free.

Anja chats to us about living in the beautiful Highlands and what drove them to set up their business here. 

How long have you lived in the Highlands and have you lived or worked anywhere else?

"We moved from the Netherlands to the Scottish Highlands in 2000. Jan Jacob had been offered a job on a Scottish country estate and this seemed to be the perfect opportunity to move our growing family to live in the remote and beautiful countryside. Within weeks we had found tenants for our home in the Netherlands, and we moved our three young daughters into a small cottage in the Scottish Highlands."

Tell us a bit about your business. What do you do, how did you get into this sector and why did you choose to pursue your career here?

"Part of Jan Jacob’s job was the management of the wild deer population, and we fell in love with the delicious meat. The price of venison was very low at that time, the meat was not as mainstream as it is now. Not many people were eating venison, and we wanted to add value and increase the shelf life so we could sell the products further afield.

"Always full of new ideas, Jan Jacob soon started to experiment with the venison and built a wooden box in the garden to smoke the meat. As a young boy Jan Jacob loved the dried sausages his mum bought from the local butchers. There is a tradition of making dried sausages in the Netherlands and we wanted to do this with venison too. It was a bit of a challenge as venison is a very lean meat and does not contain much fat however Jan Jacob worked out a recipe in the end.

"Friends and family loved our experiments and encouraged us to start a business. A friend owned an old derelict butcher shop in Roy Bridge and we managed to get the lease. The building had been empty for many years and after kitting it out into a state of the art processing unit in 2003; Great Glen Charcuterie was born!

"For both of us this was a real change. I was a primary school teacher in the Netherlands and Jan Jacob had been to Vet school."

What do you love about living and working in the region?

"We love being part of a community, there are less people in this area which means it doesn’t take long before you know everyone!

"With the mountains and lochs on our doorstep this is the perfect place to live, we really rated this when the children grew up as they could roam the hills behind our home and have more freedom then they would have had if we had stayed in the Netherlands.

"Now I love going for regular swims all year round and have found a very supportive group of local women who do this too."

What would you say to other people who are considering moving to the region and setting up their own business?

"There are so many opportunities in the area, especially when you move from somewhere else you do see them. There is a lot of support from government agencies such as HIE and a thriving and inspiring community.

There is a lot of info on our website too including a film telling our story which will give a good idea who we are. www.greatglencharcuterie.com