Nearly three weeks ago we opened the doors to The Farm Shop, inspired by our own food journey, trying to source the highest quality, clean ingredients, which isn’t always easy, and recognising that so many others in our island community will be trying to source their food using similar values.
For us locally sourced and minimal packaging matter, but there are greater objectives that come higher up the list; namely animal welfare, environmental welfare and nutritional health, and in meeting these it is pivotal that we attend to farmer welfare too.
Rebuilding our food system
Without the farmer working to achieve these goals we can achieve none of the above. It is why we started farming, for our own food supply and to supply our community, but also to explore how we rebuild our food system literally from the ground up.
Initially offering a veg box scheme, but due to overwhelming demand this naturally led to the idea to open a farm shop.
Community Hub
Then came the realisation that the potential of The Farm Shop is not just an extension of our own farming ambition, but an opportunity to build a community hub that represents, supports and invests in values driven local farming.
The Farm Shop we have built reflects a farmhouse kitchen, it is a hospitality offering, a place for community to gather around food, to ignite conversations and information sharing, with the cash flow generated reinvested back into the sector, staying on island in a circular economic model.
Fair Pay for Farmers
It is about making the role of the farmer and others who play a role in the food sector economically viable in a local context, ensuring fair pay for the produce they create, simplifying the route to market and bringing it together for the convenience of the customer.
We believe that the farmer is one of the most important figures in any community and this has been overlooked in our present globalised food system.
We have lost touch with the value that local food production brings to the table. In a thriving local food system we can count on food security, which is even more apparent on an island.
Postives
We enjoy greater health outcomes at a time when most statistics are spiralling in the wrong direction.
We positively impact our environment and wildlife habitats attending to many of the objectives of the strategy for nature.
We maintain demand for open agricultural land employing no chemicals in the land management, and we embrace our rich agricultural heritage.
Internationally recognised for our tomatoes and our cattle, not to mention our cultural heritage with Hugo’s ‘The Toilers of the Sea’ perhaps best exemplifying our seafaring spirit.
A place that recognises and celebrates its food production enhances its identity and its culture, a key component in the pride and values of a community and in the lure for the visitor.
Think a Greek olive or oregano, an Italian tomato or a juicy Spanish orange and it’s hard not to have the taste buds salivating.
Clean food produced locally and seasonally is literally bursting with flavour, most often resulting in a universal vocabulary of sounds suggesting deep satisfaction, which translates directly as nutritional density too.
Farm Shop movement
The Farm Shop is as much a movement as it is a market, defined by its values, setting out to rebuild a thriving local farming sector.
Every pound that you spend on food is a vote, a vote for the system in which that food was produced.
When you spend your pound in The Farm Shop you are voting for investment in values driven local farming, for clean and healthy food for the community, now and for the generations who follow.
Follow our social media @thefarmshopgg to learn more about the new generation of local farmers and vote for them with your pound. One thing you can count on is that they will deliver exactly what they promise, putting the highest quality local produce on the table.
Jock Pettitt – Co-Founder, The Farm Shop