Up yours - Mr F S Agency

Well I might have been a little optimistic about the sizzling summer and barbecues but life goes on and it is still pretty good - unless you work for the Met Office or in the organic food sector. What can only be described as a turbulent twelve months, followed by the Food Standards Agencies report followed by what seems like every journalist in the country having a dig at the organic sector seems a little like kicking a man when he is down.
The mistake the Soil Association has made has been to try to be all things to all men and because it has encompassed so many issues it has punched way above its weight. The ‘organic umbrella’ has covered many things that are, at best, tenuously linked. All it can really do is ensure that, at the end of the chain, the product offered to you is as untainted as possible. It can’t guarantee fair trade, low food miles or an Elixir for life. The Soil Association does have stringent controls on stocking rates (animal not nylon) to insure that ground isn’t over fertilised and to the best of my knowledge, hydroponics are banned but it really can’t stop farmers growing organic vegetables as part of an intensive, monoculture system. So this is what they will do, mimicking wherever possible, conventional methods to produce the uniform, tasteless rubbish the supermarkets tell us customers want.
Organics simply doesn’t work like this as the £36 million loss posted by the UK operation of Wholefood Market shows. I would like to think that Riverford customers, and many others, have always been a little more savvy than to swallow the prima facie organic message hook, line and sinker. They have always been prepared to dig a little deeper to find good food. If this is the case , in a perverse sort of way, it points to the strength of the organic movement rather than the weakness. If we have always taken it with a pinch of salt how the hell has it done so well?

What makes a good farm shop?

The real farm shop that sells produce grown, reared and processed on site is a rarity. Many aren’t even on farms. Most might sell a few vegetables or pieces of meat or cheese from the farm but, almost invariably, the vast majority is bought in from what remains of the independent wholesale supply chain. Every farm shop seems to sell the same frozen fruit and vegetables, drinks, biscuits and crisps. Often you would be unable to tell the difference between farm shops in Devon and Durham. They are destinations rather than serious food shops.
Before food processing became large scale and centralised it was much more common for farmers to add value on site and sell on, either to local shops and wholesalers or through their own shops and market stalls in towns. Butchers with their own farms were commonplace. This, with the motor car, would make for a sensible grounding for farm retailing. Sadly until recently it had all but died out. Now that a degree of on-farm processing has returned we have also become more aware of carbon emissions and food miles. Should we really be getting in our cars and driving out to a farm shop to buy a few vegetables or a lb of mince? It isn’t as though Riverford Farm Shop is staffed by surplus members of the farmer’s family. I live in Totnes and drive out there every day.
So I reckon farm shops should be in town – where the people are. It is inevitable that they sell a reasonably comprehensive range of groceries but they should prioritise local, seasonal and fresh. Because most farms specialise in only one or two lines a cooperative venture of concessions seems a good way forward. One farmer/processor might do the vegetables, another the meat, another the dairy, another the bakery etc. It wouldn’t be a farmers market because there needs to be a continuity of message. It needs to be treated as a routine food shop rather than a destination and it needs to be open and fully stocked all the time.
I reckon Woolworths would make a great farm shop. What do you think? Every decent sized town should have one.

Welcome

Welcome to the Riverford Farm Shop blog. You might well ask ‘what’s the point?’ and I can’t deny it is a valid question. At its most mundane retailing is a fairly one dimensional activity with goods going one way and money going in the other direction. I would like to think there is a little more to it. A good food shop is more than a refuelling stop with education, social and communal functions all coming into play. Websites are brilliant for many reasons but high points in the interaction stakes isn’t one of them. In fact they can be a little soul destroying with so little instant feedback. To keep up the good work we need a bit more feedback than that six jars of pasta sauce has been sold from shelf D in Aisle 9.
So the blog seems a good way of changing things. Most of the postings will be product related but feel free to comment on anything.