Farndon Fields Farm Shop

The Farm Retailer of the Year award recognises outstanding farm retailers who combine vision, a passion for farming and a mind for retail to achieve this Gold standard. This year’s winners, Kevin & Milly Stokes of Farndon Fields Farm Shop, Market Harborough, Leicestershire, have achieved that spark which happens only when all these factors work together.

Owned and managed by Kevin and Milly Stokes, Farndon Fields has been selling its produce to the public since 1983. The first farm shop was located in the farmhouse garage. By 1998 its success had prompted the construction of purpose-built quarters across the yard and Farndon Fields Farm Shop has never looked back – or stood still – since having been expanded again in 2005 and 2007.

Farndon Fields Farm Shop is a significant business, important to its community in many ways, but what makes it such an excellent example of the farm retail ethos – and deserving winner of the Farm Retailer of the Year Award - is the fact that farming has remained at the heart of the business, all through its growth. Farndon Fields
Farm produces 40 varieties of vegetables, including seven types of potato, as well as soft fruit. With zero ‘food miles’ a bonus, customers need no second invitation to buy when produce is as fresh as this, piled straight from the field into colourful displays, as often as needed each day.

Farming is Kevin’s responsibility and passion, while Milly looks after the retailing which utilizes her skills as a professional shop designer. The shop is spacious, charming and deliberately – but not overly - rustic, laid out to take customers on journey, with more to discover around each corner. Homegrown sunflowers and gladioli in summer add a ‘wow’ factor to the glass-covered entrance, as well as being best sellers in the shop. With the plant centre as a backdrop, a café was added in 2007 under a franchise arrangement with local catering firm Webb’s.

Inside the award winning Farm Shop

The full-service butchery opened a year or so earlier and with fresh produce their inspiration, Kevin and Milly work closely with their butcher - and a local baker - to ensure that the ‘homegrown’ element penetrates every area of the business. Meat is bought directly from local farmers up to eight miles away, and sent to a nearby abattoir, covering a total of less than 15 food miles from start to finish. The butchers produce Farndon Fields specialities including ‘seasonal sausages’, such as pork with homegrown leek. The bakers, whose premises are just 500 metres down the road, have also been creative with farm produce. As well as being wonderfully fresh and delivered several times a day, the bakery team has developed recipes using, for example, asparagus and pumpkin. And the café, full of natural light and plants, doesn’t disappoint either on the local food front: it offers a full range of farmhouse-style meals using fruit and vegetables from the farm, such as golden beetroot soup and strawberry cream teas.

The shrewd interweaving of own and local continues and it is worth noting here how influential this successful farm shop has been in encouraging businesses around it to create distinctive local foods. The past ten years has seen tremendous growth in
the Leicestershire local foods scene and Farndon Fields is a proud stockist of products such as Culloden Farm strawberry ice cream, and free-range chicken breast stuffed with Quenby Stilton and wrapped in bacon. Tasters are readily available in all departments.

Milly & Kevin’s recipe for success? ‘Be honest with your customers; offer them the very best from your farm and as many local producers as you can find. And enjoy doing it! We – and our fabulous farm shop team - do.’

Award kindly sponsored by:

Finalists
Ardardan Farm Shop, Cardross, Argyll & Bute
Blagdon Farm Shop, Blagdon, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Garsons, Esher, Surrey
Gonalston Farm Shop, Nottingham
HFG Farm Shop, Norwich, Norfolk
The Hop Shop, Sevenoaks, Kent
Lifton Strawberry Fields, Lifton, Devon
Rhug Farm Shop, Corwen, Denbighshire