Wareings of Tarleton landed the QV Fresh Approach Independent Retailer of the Year award at this year’s Re:fresh conference, hosted by the Fresh Produce Consortium and FPJ.
Wareings is the latest incarnation of a family business that has been growing a range of horticultural products for more than 100 years, and in recent times has made a very successful transition to independent retailer with a stand at 12 regular farmers’ markets in the north-west of England.
Current owners Clive Wareing and his wife Debbie have run the business since 1996, at which time they were supplying the local wholesale market from 12.5 hectares of land. With the market seemingly in decline and larger, specialist growers taking much of the supermarket business, it was decided that the fledgling farmers’ markets would provide the greatest potential.
A change of strategy was required and Wareings began growing a much wider range of vegetable and salad products, along with some herbs, utilising a small area of glasshouse and polytunnels to maintain a continuous supply of seasonal produce, all propagated in-house from seed.
Owner Clive Wareing said: "We were very surprised and very pleased to win the award. It was a fantastic evening and, being a smaller business, it's great to come down and see how the big league companies operate. We are a very proud little business."
The company can now offer its customers more than 50 locally grown and often novel products each year, including purple carrots, purple Brussels sprouts, Romanesque and purple caulifowers, pak choi, cavalo nero, celeriac, pink fur apple potatoes, Swiss chard and fennel.
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