The Source

About the farm

We farm in Lancashire, on the border between west Yorkshire and north Yorkshire.  We have a farm, farm shop and online retail business an hour from Ravenscliffe High School.

We are a 250 acre farm, with mixed life stock, pigs, store lambs and a dairy herd.  We sell everything direct.

We are farmer retailers.  We started doing farmers markets and mixed meat boxes in 2008. Then we started cutting meat in house which then developed into us having our own cutting plant.  We then started the farm shop and moved on to e-commerce.

It has been a journey that has saved us.  In 2007 we had a choice intensify or diversify.

We also support 30 small family farms, guaranteeing to take their stock. We buy the live animal, keep it on farm and then take it to their local abattoir and bring it back to farm for cutting.  We pay a fair price.  When we approach a farm with organic stock, they tell us that selling an organic pig at auction doesn’t pay.  So rather than us giving them a fixed price, when we pick up a pig we ask them how much they need to be paid to make having looked after that pig pay and be worthwhile for them.  I can pick up a conventional pig for £40 whereas an organic pig is £120 or more, so that is 3 or 4 times the price.  But if I give them a fair price it  guarantees them as a supplier."

How do you supply the school?

Supplying Tony Mulgrew at Ravenscliffe High School has been part of our journey.  Supplying the school is only a small part of our business but it is the feel good part of our business.  We sell our meat direct to Tony.  He tells us what he needs and we pack it up and courier it over.

Ravenscliffe High School is not one of our biggest customers but we can supply the meat at a rate that is affordable for them on the back of our bigger customers.   There is no excuse for any school not to achieve putting quality food on school menus given what Tony achieves.  He makes it work.  We always say that Tony’s main ingredient is passion!

We have worked for a lot of Food for Life schools.  We started supplying organic milk and then moved on to supply pork, lamb and beef too.  We used to deliver milk but we don’t pasteurise milk anymore so we now concentrate on the meat side of business.

This country has a huge problem with food poverty and, from our perspective, anything we can do as farmers to alleviate this is so important.

What would you say to other farmers interested in supplying schools?

Supplying schools is a community aspect of farming; supporting children who are the future of the community.  So supplying the school is not just a business decision, it is a community decision. 

As well as supplying Tony, we send mixed beef boxes pre-packed to other school catering suppliers around the country.  So it doesn’t have to be a local school, you can supply schools further away if you have the packing facilities, or if you team up with a butcher.

It is commercially sound too.  There is definitely money in it.  As a business decision, chasing  organic Food for Life contracts is definitely commercially viable.  There is money to be made.

So, my advice to other farmers is:  “Start by getting out of the box you are in.  Farmers are notoriously bad at change!  Start somewhere is my best advice.  As an industry there is so much opportunity.  Farms need to look at themselves as a business; don’t be afraid to make money, don’t be afraid to do something different.  With changes to farm payments there is even more reason to find new customers. 

And if you are organic, chase the Food for Life contracts. 

You don’t need a cutting facility. You can team up with your local butcher.

One of our biggest sellers is ox liver.  Your butcher can take the prime cuts and then get the cheaper, better priced cuts into your local school.

It is all possible!