“A few years ago,” says Veronica Astley, who runs Back To The Garden, a farm shop established nearly four years ago with her husband Delaval, “there was no way that the large multiples could produce, or would choose to sell, organic food at the price which we could offer it to the public. Unfortunately, with the popularity and potential of organic food being fully recognised, that gap has now been closed. We can foresee ourselves very shortly becoming more expensive than the local supermarkets.”
But Meryl Ward, who runs Uncle Henry’s, a venture started a few months ago, near Kirton Lindsay, in Lincolnshire, does not feel that she is in direct competition with the major retailers. Her farm shop was started as a natural extension of the existing pig and potato business. She feels that the traditional idea of this form of outlet has undergone something of a radical evolution in recent years, with farm shops tending “to be run on a completely different scale”.
“Our shop offering is something very different to that of the supermarket. We are able to deliver local, with low food miles, in addition to seasonal varieties of high quality products,” she says.
Indeed, the Astleys, whose farm shop is near Letheringsett in Norfolk, have noticed the surprisingly large, enthusiastic and indeed “grateful” market for not just unusual and organically grown fresh produce, which is still relatively difficult to come by in Norfolk, but the “personal service and easy parking”. The relaxed and friendly way that it is presented to the consumer and the guarantee of the “local provenance of the products” is most appealing.
“We began with 24 acres which we ran alongside our livestock and arable concerns,” says Astley.
“But last year we were growing everything from beetroot, which is very popular at the moment, to romanescu and squashes. In the next few years we see ourselves expanding into both soft fruit and fruit trees. The idea is to grow a little bit of everything.”
This is a policy adopted by Brian Filby, who runs Groveland Farm Shop, a better-established enterprise, in Roughton, Norfolk. When his family bought the original farm shop 20 years ago, they had just begun grubbing out the orchards.
Now Groveland also has a traditional livestock and arable business and is not only almost entirely self-sufficient, with a complete cycle of production, retail and on-site consumption through its restaurant, but grows “every conceivable variety of fruit and vegetable that it is possible to grow in Britain today”.
Filby also keeps 26 acres of orchards, from which he offers a huge range of traditional British apples, which run all year, providing one of 23 varieties from Tileman’s Early, through Felstar and Elstar and the Norfolk Russet.
One problem - what he terms as an “instilled natural caution” - is the consumer when it comes to trying new varieties. Greensleeves, for instance, is far less popular than red varieties and he puts this down purely to the colour. He has, however, recently expanded his apple juice concern with a new plant to bring the number of specialist juices up to seven.
Astley has also recognised the potential in unusual and previously obsolete varieties. “But I see the real growth area,” he says, “being in not only traditional British, but more in the untapped range of regional varieties.”
This is a view shared by Ward, who has noticed this trend to be particularly prominent in the extremely healthy and expanding market for British potatoes.
One stumbling block, however, is the way that many new consumers are accustomed to “half cucumbers and cabbages”, says Filby. “We cannot afford to keep the prices as low as the supermarkets in any case; indeed, the price of cauliflowers hasn’t increased in ten years. Wasting half the vegetables because customers won’t pay for the other half of the cabbage ‘because it’s too big’, is really rather funny, but also frustrating.”
Ward, who runs the most newly established of the farm shops, has encountered tremendous enthusiasm and support from her local community and customers alike. The support of local councils has also been forthcoming, an observation shared by all the producers. “People are not only interested in what you are doing,” she says, “but excited.”
“There is very little nit-picking,” says Ros Loweth, from her four years experience with her shop at Abbey Parks Farms near Heckington, Lincolnshire, “and people are keen to ask questions about the food. It is particularly heartening when you see young mothers, children and older people really appreciating the difference between us and supermarket shopping.”
She has, like Ward, chosen to focus more on the promotion of local, fresh produce - 75 per cent is local to her shop - rather than an organic range. “We did try to go organic, farming 10 acres,” she says, “but it didn’t really work for us.” But innovative techniques have proved very successful for Filby. “We are able to produce organic fruit,” he says, “by using tables which elevate the plants and remove the need to eradicate ground-dwelling pests.”
Loweth, along with Filby, very much appreciates the need to counter that other great spoiling of the consumer; the obliteration of the concept of seasonal varieties. “This had previously been seen as a substantial limit on the potential of any farm shop,” says Filby. But recent explosions in demand for products such as asparagus and the ever-popular soft fruit are a vital component in competitive success.
Indeed, the need to expand the window of availability by producing earlier and higher-yielding fruit is fully appreciated, as is the exploration of imaginative methods of production and supply. Loweth has earmarked the extension of an area of polytunnels to increase production and Delaval Astley brings in “biodynamically grown organic vegetables” from a small local farm.
Loweth places great importance on the ability to establish a successful and well-known supply of asparagus, which is also an eventual aspiration of Delaval Astley. “People are no longer viewing farm shops as providing a limited selection of the most popular seasonal varieties for a few weeks a year,” she says. “Nevertheless, the ability to provide the staples all year round, such as good old spuds, carrots and leeks is essential. It is the asparagus and potatoes which seem to draw in the customers.”
“Once inside, customers often ask about our more exotic and unusual varieties,” says Astley. “Because of this increasing curiosity, next year I hope to grow ratte and pink fir apple potatoes.” He admits, however, that some have a limited potential for a growth in the consumer base, “as they are perceived as having a limited use”.
The need to work closely with other small producers and co-operatives is a fundamental component of success. Ward, for instance, does not produce organic food herself, but it makes up some of the local produce sold in her shop. This is similar for Loweth, who like all the producers imports a range of varieties, including citrus fruits, to broaden the selection on sale in the winter months.
Indeed, Astley has taken things further than simply adhering to the 20 per cent limit on non-local produce set by the council. He will not import anything that has been flown into the UK and is also a director of EOSTRE, a small co-operative of East Anglian organic growers which maintains direct links with other European producer groups. “Talks are under way to form a pan-European co-operative,” says Astley.
Farm shops are opening up in increasing numbers in both counties featured, but will these ventures realistically be able to survive?
Quite obviously, the backbone of success seems to lie very much in working together with other small producers, using non-restrictive operating practices. This, along with the vision of diversification to provide the consumer with a complete cycle of food production and consumption, in everything from home-reared meat sold in a deli, to carrots still covered in mud from the field.
Ultimately, though, as Delaval Astley puts it, “not many people stop the first time they notice us, but they remember the shop and often come back”. Maybe this slow blossoming of public awareness and embracing of this direct, friendly way of purchasing exciting new varieties of fresh, good value fruit and vegetables, and supporting their local farmers in the process, could be just the key to the continuing success of the farm shop.
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