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how we run our business
The short version -
We aim to trade openly and honestly, looking after farmers, customers, staff and local community while minimising our environmental impact.
- Farmers: fair prices, long-term relationships, flexible specifications, co-operative development, and preferential treatment of smaller, local growers.
- Customers: flavour, value, service. Making it fun and easy to feed your family real food, to buy locally and to keep in touch with how it is grown
- Staff: Paying them fairly, giving them a share of the profits they create, giving them opportunities to develop and contribute to how we run the business, and making what are often dreary jobs as palatable as possible, whether by job rotation, an open style of management, improved work conditions, clothing allowances (it’s cold picking cauliflowers in February) - or good parties.
- Environment: local food, minimal packaging (most returned to the farm for re-use or recycling). No air freight. And, or course organic
- Community: working with local schools to use our farms as an educational resource. Choosing local producers, contributing to the local economy.
And to put a bit more flesh on that...
A fair deal for suppliers
We want the vegetables in our boxes to come from farmers who share our passion for food and organic farming. The box scheme provides an opportunity for small and medium sized family farms and those who measure their success in more than pound notes. Our growers love the box scheme, partly because it provides a secure and reliable market, but also because they value the connection with local customers who appreciate seasonality and flavour.
There is a relentless pressure in British Agriculture for farms to get larger and more specialised in response to the needs of the supermarkets for cheaper, more uniform, cosmetically perfect, centrally distributed food. Get big or get out continues to be the message and farmers are leaving the industry in droves. The box scheme provide a secure refuge for growers who want to stay, are good at what they do, but cannot, or do not want to get big.
As we begin to supply produce beyond fruit and veg, similar principles apply in choosing who to work with: we want to source as locally as possible and to deal with people who share a passion for food, treat staff decently, and are open and honest in how they do business.
Passionate about food
We are constantly urged to eat more fruit and vegetables but as a nation we spend less and less time in the kitchen. People have lost trust, but not, we hope, interest in how their food is grown.
We select varieties for flavour, bring them to your doorstep straight from our fields and provide lots of information on our website and newsletters about how to make the most of them in your kitchen. Experience has shown us that the more our customers know about how the vegetables are grown and by whom, the more interest and pleasure they take in preparing and sharing them. We hope our enthusiasm is infectious. Food must be fun; preaching about vitamins and fibre does not help. Many customers tell us that the veg boxes have changed the way their family eats, and certainly extended their range of vegetables. It is a bit like having your own allotment or garden but without all the work.
Flavour is king
Culinary quality rules the roost at River Swale. We are more concerned about how the vegetables perform in the kitchen and on the plate than how they look on the shelf. Varieties are selected for flavour, picked at their best and for the vegetables where freshness counts, normally delivered to the doorstep within 24 to 48 hours from picking. We very rarely wash anything because this frequently compromises flavour, quality and shelf-life. This does mean that you will find a bit of mud left at the bottom of your fridge.
We do our best to encourage our customers to appreciate and value the seasons and to eat with them as much as possible. Over the year over 90% of the vegetables will be grown in the UK, with the vast majority coming from Home Farm and the local group of Yorkshire growers. Having said that, we are pragmatic and do not want to drive our customers back to the supermarkets when out range is limited so we do import, mainly from France and Southern Europe, to maintain variety and quality in the boxes, mainly between March to May (what we call the 'Hungry Gap').
What organic really means
Organic farming should mean more than simply not using synthetic fertilisers and pesticides; it should be about understanding and working with nature in a partnership where we get what we need from our fields with the minimum disturbance. The best organic farming requires years of experience built up using at least four senses and perhaps even a bit of the sixth. The best organic farmers are obsessive about their soil, using smell and even taste, as well as touch and appearance to assess its health, and are constantly questioning and learning about how both nature and the farmer can get more from the partnership.
A healthy organic soil teaming with bacteria, fungi and invertebrate, combined with good management of hedges and field margins, is the basis for a healthy food chain right up to the buzzards above.
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