Gregor MacKenzie

Born and reared in the wild Highlands of bonnie Scotland, Gregor started his working life as a 13‑year‑old “Saturday boy” for a local retailer bagging tatties into 3lb bags. From this strong foothold he decided to follow his heart rather than his “further-education” head and Gregor invested 14 years into the business, growing with it as he grew up himself. As the previous owners stood back into retirement Gregor moved forward and picked up the reins. A normal working day started at midnight leaving for Glasgow Fruit Market, working through the night, morning, afternoon and into the evening. Gregor was involved in every aspect of running a business including development, personnel management and client relations. He loved growing the business and steering it into new markets, networking with many small artisan family businesses as well as multinational suppliers. After many years of hard work invested, national economic pressures made the decision easy to close down the business before it was too late, but it lives on in his heart as the high standard of work he aims to output on a daily basis.

Alongside his daily work Gregor has spent most of his life surrounded by technology. He is at one with IT, specialising in web design and development, IT support and training, programming, coding, photography, stage lighting and sound, video production, IT hardware installation, maintenance and repair to name a few areas of expertise… he can even change the wee square battery in a smoke alarm at a push. Gregor relishes a challenge and will take on any uncharted hi‑tech projects with unmatched enthusiasm and a keen watchful eye.

A little about Gregor:

• After a childhood stained by being a stubborn fussy eater, Gregor has flourished as a home cook and can now happily talk about produce, seasonality, trends, techniques and taste combinations until the cows come home. This is an excellent way to distract Gregor if the need arises, or if the cows are late.
• Since the mid 90s Gregor signed off his e-mails with a casual ‘G’ in place of his full name. This allowed Gregor to garner the monikers ‘Big G’ and ‘G’. Gregor takes it as a compliment when referred to by these names.
• Gregor’s first ‘proper’ PC was a Packard Bell desktop featuring a Pentium II 233MHz processor, 200Mb hard disk, 32Mb RAM, CD-ROM drive, 3½” floppy drive, 15" CRT monitor, 1 USB, 1 Serial and 1 Parallel port, running Windows 95.
• There is a local legend in the glen that on certain nights of the year, when the moon is full and the stars are out, between the clocks falling back and the first cuckoo of Spring, then and only then, Gregor will casually but gracefully pick up his guitar and enjoy a night of heartfelt sing‑song‑ing with a room full of chums. Certainly a night etched with fondness into the annals of their memories, adorned with a post-it note marked “golden”.
• Gregor enjoys DIY. His most recent project has been the design, evolution, redesign, building and completion of a stoater of a bar-be-cue, with an integrated spit-roast, giant chopping board, magnetic knife rail and an adorable handy wee shelf.