The development of a home-grown food brand has been a goal of Bute Estate - the island's main landowner - for some years, and they have already garnered support from many local farmers.
"We've had discussions with them and they've been involved f
rom the beginning," said Nick, "so that we can set up and can market their produce.
"We've tried to develop this Bute food brand, which will have knock-on effects for the producers on the island. But it can take time, and is quite a slow process."
Around one in three Bute farmers have been involved, and shown interest in the initiative, but so far their talks have not produced any conclusive results.
"I would support a local food initiative, but we don't have the logistics in place to get the food to market places on the mainland," said John Dickson, a cattle farmer at Scalpsie Bay. "The question is how to get it further afield."
Mr Dickson was present at the initial discussions, but decided to keep a watchful eye on the project before committing himself.
"Putting it all together is a big hurdle and it needs someone to drive it forward," he said.
"I'm happy to support it but I won't change my production system for it.
"If they take it a step further, we need somebody really creative, and for someone to put a lot of capital behind it."
One of the main difficulties facing the development of the brand is the economic constraints of production in this part of the world.
The lack of facilities on the west of coast of Scotland for finishing animals means many of the cattle are only prepared to store stage. This requires the cattle to be taken to the Fife and Aberdeenshire areas once they are about one year old, where they are fed up on cereals until they are at their killing weight.
In order to keep the industry on the island, farmers would likely have to reduce their number of cattle, since they would be keeping them for longer periods of time, increasing their costs.
"The major problem is creating more finished stock," said Brian Hill, of Plan Farm near Kingarth, who has been one of the main supporters of the initiative. "It is such a long term project - at least a three-year cycle. You need commitment.
"It's a big commercial decision to make and you need a crystal ball to see if it going to pay off. Once it is up and running it will be easier to pull others in behind you.
"It's looking at turning around farming on Bute to make it more profitable."
"All the individual farmers have tried to market their own product, and some of them have been quite successful," Nick Mellish continued. "But it's on a small scale, and it's quite difficult for them, being on an island.
"You have to have more than one outlet and obviously that's very difficult, and if they have to start going onto the mainland, well that racks up their costs."
The main goal for Nick is to involve as many farmers as possible, which could help cut production expenses across the board. But if the initiative does take off, there remains the problem of selling the product.
"You've got to re-educate people to paying a premium price for a premium product, and that is a very difficult thing to do in the meat trade," said Nick.
"It's niche marketing. That is not an easy thing to do because there are a lot of other people trying to do the same thing, such as in Arran or Orkney.
"Our advantage I suppose, which is our main marketing point, is that we are a west coast of Scotland island. So if you can convince people that that is good enough for them to pay more, it could work."
