A guardian for the poultry – our new Maremma pups
When something this cute comes home to Farm2Fork we just have to share it with you. Meet our new livestock guardian pups, named Nala and Lula! They’re Maremma Sheepdogs – a breed from the region of Tuscany and Lazio in Italy where they take their name from....
Ollie earns a place in the finals for ‘Best Farmer’ Award
Oliver White’s determination to make a success of his county council tenancy has earned him a place in the finals of the best farmer category in the Western Daily Press Food & Farming Awards. Sue Bradley met him. Every day counts on Oliver White’s small...
How many chickens? What happens when our customers want more
How many chickens does it take to make a pack of livers? No, this isn’t the beginning of a terrible joke. A huge demand on offal here at Greenway Farm, coming mostly from a spike in diets advocating its nutritional value, means our little enterprise Farm2Fork is...
A boost for the farm thanks to a ‘Making it Local’ LEADER Grant
We’ve been lucky enough to land ourselves a LEADER Rural Development Grant, to help us expand and improve facilities here on the farm. It means we can boost productivity and store a wider range of products to benefit our customers. We’re busy rejigging the farm...
Our Organic Journey Continues
Here at Farm2Fork we follow organic principles and strive to use natural methods at all times. This means avoiding pesticides, herbicides, not medicating our animals (unless absolutely necessary for their wellbeing), and allowing the animals free access to pasture,...
Christmas Goose is making a comeback
Several West farmers are rearing geese for Christmas. Sue Bradley discovers how they’re upholding a centuries old tradition. Christmas is coming and increasing numbers of geese are getting fat on farms throughout the West. Once the festive season’s bird of...
Traditions of the Christmas Goose
For the Cratchit family, the goose was the centerpiece for their humble Christmas dinner in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Despite goose at that time being considered the cheaper of the birds when compared with turkey – the goose brings the family together around the...
Nisreen shares her day as a volunteer at Farm2Fork
We were lucky enough to have a helping hand from our Wwoofer (volunteer) Nisreen this summer, who’d traveled all the way from Boston, Massachusetts to work at Farm2Fork for three weeks. She’s been chronicling her journey as a Watson Fellow in a blog, as she explores...
Alpacas take up their role as guardians on the farm
While things are generally peaceful in the pastures of Farm2Fork, we’ve been on our guard for a lot of the summer as the foxes have been circling. We can’t blame them, as the unusually dry weather has meant they are extremely hungry. It does, however, put everyone on...
Growing a generation of inspirational farmers
A study carried out by Defra back in 2013 showed that in 2010 the average age of farmers in the UK was 59, unchanged from 2007. The industry faces many challenges and it’s struggling to recruit younger workers, but my personal journey shows that if you’re passionate...
Why do we traditionally eat lamb at Easter?
You may think that we eat lamb at Easter because of its seasonality. But as our ewes still aren’t due to give birth for another two weeks, Farm2Fork can say with some certainty that Easter lamb isn’t likely to be seasonal, and it might not even be local if you’re...
Can eating meat be healthier than a plant-based diet?
It’s not that usual for meat producers to extol the virtues of eating less meat to its customers. But at Farm2Fork we do things a little differently. Of course we want you to buy our meat – after all we consider it the very best – but we still want people to eat less...
Why pasture-raised chickens need grain
Chickens can’t live on grass alone. And there is good reason for this. If we fed our poultry 100% grass and didn’t incorporate the essential grain they need in their diet, then they wouldn’t survive. Many of our customers ask us whether our chickens are fed...
A time for sharing – gathering the family around the Christmas table with the perfect goose
Sharing a delicious Christmas goose with loved ones fits in perfectly with the latest fashion to eat well and share hearty meals with friends and family. Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi, Nigella Lawson’s At My Table: A Celebration of Home Cooking, Crave by Martha Collison,...
In Our Hands – a film about food sovereignty
On Friday (November 17) the inspiring film In Our Hands premiered in Bristol. Farm2Fork is proud to have been included in this important story behind the blood, sweat and tears of the farmers who are outgrowing the industrial food system. Following a group of...
A mindful way to rear livestock
This blog post is designed to get you thinking. To show that there’s never just one way to do things. For many years the debate has been running around how best to rear livestock. Scientists have proved that ruminants produce a huge amount of methane which contributes...
Healthy soil for a healthy planet
According to the Soil Association less than one sixth of the land on Earth is suitable for growing crops. When we rely so heavily on soil to produce food it’s madness that we’ve taken our soil for granted for so long. The association says that a third of the world’s...
The ethics of grass-fed
We could get into a debate on the ethics of eating meat full-stop. For vegans, eating any animal product, be that meat, or dairy, or honey, would be unethical entirely. For vegetarians often the reason behind the choice is animal welfare, but there are health reasons...
Farming in the digital age
As a small-scale producer, getting the word out about my farm and ultimately my products is crucial to its success. When there are so many farmers and producers out there doing brilliant things with their marketing, I know how important it is to use the digital age to...
Why choose free range pasture-raised chicken?
In March this year 76.3 million broilers were slaughtered in the UK, according to Government figures. Broilers are chickens reared for meat, and this eye-watering figure might make you wonder where all these chickens are kept, and how they raised. According to the...
Ditching the carbs – introducing the Ketogenic diet
No doubt you’ll be familiar with the Paleo diet, which in broad terms involves cutting out anything that couldn’t be hunted or gathered in the days of our cavemen ancestors – Paleo followers will often only eat 100% grass-fed meat products to ensure they are...
The problem with pesticides
A damning report from the UN claims the use of pesticides goes against our human rights. Those who suggest pesticides are needed to “feed the world” have been called inaccurate and “dangerously misleading”. Here at Farm2Fork we steer clear of pesticides as we like to...
Welcome to the school of the slow-cooker!
We’re all about the slow cooker right now. You’ve probably already heard about cooking “slow and low”, but did you know there are plenty of benefits from eating meat that’s been cooked for a long time (not cremated though). Slow cooked meat retains its scrummy flavour...
Celebrating the Great British Roast
Earlier this month a Great British favourite – the Yorkshire Pudding, enjoyed slightly more than five minutes of fame with its own special day – February 5 (should you wish to mark it in your diary for next year!) Although we love a Yorkshire pud as much as the...
My Nuffield Farming Scholarship Journey – Leading The Grass-Fed Revolution
Having been lucky enough to be selected as a 2015 Nuffield Farming Scholar, and with the generous support of the Elizabeth Creak Charitable Trust, I’ve had the opportunity to research something I’m passionate about – the grass-fed movement. Discovering how other...
Farm2Fork played host to the British Goose Producers annual farm walk on Thursday, October 13
Farm2Fork played host to the British Goose Producers annual farm walk on Thursday, October 13. Welcoming goose producers and farming journalists from across the country I got the opportunity to talk about how Farm2Fork has grown, and to share advice. The autumn farm...
Thank you to everyone who came along to our Pasture Walk!
We want to say a big thank you to everyone who came along to our first ever Pasture Walk on Sunday, October 23. It was great to see so many of you at the farm, and we hope you enjoyed meeting the animals, and learning about how we run things here at Farm2Fork. The sun...
Join Our Pasture Walk, October 23
We’re so excited to be able to invite you and your families along to Farm2Fork for our Pasture Walk on Sunday, October 23. As a half-term treat why not come and experience the farm firsthand, meet the animals, learn about what we do, watch how we work and understand...
Farm2Fork Host The British Goose Producers Autumn Farm Walk, 13 October
We’re lucky enough to have been asked by British Goose Producers to host their autumn farm walk on Thursday, October 13. This means that Farm2Fork will be hosting leading figures from the world of farming and goose production, journalists and farming enthusiasts. The...
Pasture-Raised Chicken
I’m a big fan of Joel Salatin, the Virginia-based farming guru who believes in a wholesome, natural way of farming. When I saw how he raised his chickens using a really simply designed moveable pen, it seemed only natural to adopt it on the Farm2Fork farm with our new...
We’re delighted to welcome a new member of the team to Farm2Fork
Emma Wynne-Jones, herdess, environmentalist, and holistic thinker, has recently touched down in the UK from America where she’s worked for many years riding horseback as a carbon cowgirl. Emma was attracted to Farm2Fork because of its grass-fed credentials and our...
Tasmania
It seems like I’ve been travelling an awful lot recently. Some of you may know that I’ve just returned from a three-week trip to Tasmania. It’s all in the name of work, honestly! As part of my Nuffield Scholarship, I have to undertake a certain number of weeks of...
Winter on the farm – the livestock present their woolly coats!
Many people ask us what happens to the animals here on the farm during wintertime. Do they have to go inside? Do they have to wear winter jackets? Do they need extra food? The answer is quite simply that our animals graze outside, year round, just as they would have...
The Oxford Real Farming Conference
Farm2Fork is blazing a trail in the grass-fed revolution, and I was lucky enough to spread the word about the benefits of grass-fed meat at a recent conference in Oxford. My presentation at The Oxford Real Farming Conference was entitled Our Grass-fed Future: A Rescue...
American Travels
I’ve recently returned from my travels around America to discover why grass-fed meat is not promoted as widely in the UK. After winning a prestigious Nuffield Scholarship, I was tasked with researching this niche market and reporting back on my findings. In 28 days I...
Meat As Nature Intended
Here at Farm2Fork we raise traditional, native breed beef, goose and lamb to live exactly as nature intended. It means that at Greenway farm we have chosen to respect nature’s seasons, and graze our lush herb-rich meadow pastures to provide our animals with a...Nuffield Farming Scholarship 2015
As well as a farm move Ollie has successfully won a prestigious Nuffield Farming Scholarship this year. This will allow him to investigate why the benefits of 100% grassfed meat and dairy are not widely promoted within the UK food market. Subsequently he hopes to help...
How herbs can help…!
Greenway Farm’s pasture consists of what’s known as ‘herbal grazing leys’. In these new grazing leys you will find… 4 varieties of grass, 6 varieties of clover, the herbs: birdsfoot trefoil, sainfoin, chicory, ribgrass, burnet, yarrow and...
The Move to Greenway Farm
In June the whole farm moved! From the small scale operation at Grove Farm to 125 acres of south facing land near Ilminster, Somerset. Now at the new ‘Greenway Farm’, Ollie can realise his dream of creating a sustainable, healthy farm that can provide good quality...
Filming a ‘practical goose guide’ for the Smallholder Series
First day of filming on the farm… Ollie talks about the first steps of goose production – rearing healthy goslings! Farm2Fork will feature in a new film for smallholders ‘a practical goose guide’ by the Smallholder Series....
