Michelle Porter

After 10 years working as an English teacher, Michelle worked for organisations providing overseas aid, including Save the Children. It was during a stint volunteering in Africa that she met her partner, David, a farmer from Monifieth, near Dundee in Scotland. After a time living in Leeds, Michelle and David relocated to Angus when an opportunity arose to help run the family farm business, Balhungie Berry Farm.

Driven by desire to deliver help to impoverished communities, the couple decided to set up their own charity in 2014 called ABC Africa, a unique zero- administration charity. The couple sell strawberries from their little farm shop in the summer months where a percentage of the profits go to the charity. Michelle started to look at other things around the farm to see if there was something else they could sell to raise money for the charity. She used the lavender grown on the farm to make a pillow spray which was received well. She then went on to make a hand cream and a balm which people also liked and so 'Made On Our Farm' was born. Michelle says that she, “never imagined that it would grow to the extent that it has. I still make products at the kitchen table and on the Aga, only on a much bigger scale.” Made On Our Farm donates a percentage of its profits to ABC Africa.

Although much of Michelle’s career has been spent working in education with international development, her interest in beauty products was evident at a young age. She fondly recalls spending hours as a little girl leafing through the pages of her Grandmother’s Pears’ Encyclopaedia, reading up on how to make soap and salves, and how she was enthralled by visits to an apothecary shop in her native Yorkshire.

Michelle handcrafts products in small batches blending homegrown, organic and locally sourced ingredients such as beeswax, honey and oatmeal. She’s passionate about delivering products that are ethical as well as beautiful: connecting customers with nature whilst protecting and promoting it.