Farndon Fields
Farndon Fields has been a Harborough institution for over 30 years. Started by Kevin and Milly Stokes in the early 1980s, the farm and shop have grown into one of the town’s best-loved destinations.
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With autumn and winter heralding some of the farm and shop’s busiest (and most magical) periods, we chatted with Oli Stokes about the wonderful events they have coming up, how they are planning for the future and, most of all, how they want to stay true to their values.
Over the past few years, the pumpkin patch has really taken off. Can you tell us how it all began and what is in store for this year? We’ve grown pumpkins to sell since the early 90s. Kevin is a grower, and if he can connect the customer with something grown in the field, he’s interested! We were growing and selling pumpkins in the shop, then the pumpkin patch experience, which is quite well established in the States, started to take off here. Our pumpkin field looked amazing, so we thought: ‘why don’t we get people to come here and see the farm?’ I think it’s quite important to show customers where the food comes from. We went big in 2021. I walked through the field and thought, this is massive! You get that excited feeling when you come to it, but we still needed to make it into a customer event. The driveway in is a real experience. There’s a real focus on the farm experience, of being in the field and picking your own pumpkins and squashes from where they’re really grown. You can take them home and decorate them or eat them for dinner, we encourage everyone to cook with them, it really is a wholesome experience. We are doing more of what we know people enjoy, with a great food and drink area to relax in – which is ideal after marching around the field with your wheelbarrow! We have face painters and some crafts happening, and of course we still have our amazing pumpkin and haybale sculptures. We are in a unique position as we are so close to the town, but we have the land to show what we do. Christmas at Farndon Fields is a staple event for lots of people in Harborough, what have you got in store for us? We are really looking forward to our annual Christmas tasting event on 27th November. Each year, we partner with our suppliers and from 4pm onwards there will be tasting stations set up all around the shop. Customers can talk to the suppliers and maybe get a bit of an offer, too. It’s a free event for anyone to come to, and there will be an ordering station on the night where customers can talk through food they’d like to pre-order for Christmas. Last year, we created a new product which was our take on a beef Wellington where the most tender cut of local beef fillet is wrapped in Brixworth pate and puff pastry by our butchers. The luxury turkey breast rolled joint is also a best-selling product each year. It’s convenience and quality for people who don’t want a whole bird and is rolled and stuffed with sage and onion stuffing and decorated with a streaky bacon lattice. Our butchers do it all by hand fresh to order, which is no mean feat with the volume of orders we get each Christmas! We are also working on the deli counter in time for the Christmas period, with a focus on local and British farmhouse cheeses. We want to be recognised as a specialist cheesemonger and we are working with Neal’s Yard Dairy to make this happen. We know that Christmas is a key season for cheese! We’ll be hosting our first new Cheese & Wine tasting evening on 14th November with a tutored tasting by Duncan Murray, pairing wines with some of these new specialist cheeses – the first of many we hope! We’re revamping our gifts and homewares section, too. Our new buyer, Ella, has a really good eye. We want everything to be related to food in a way, to reflect our core values as a farm. We’ll still be doing Christmas decorations, but we’ll be making it more Farndon Fields. There is a really nice camembert baking pot coming out, candles and handmade soaps. Natural materials and ingredients are the key. The shop will also have a range of pre-made and customisable hampers. So, if you need a bit of inspiration, we will have a hamper ready to buy, or if you want to grab your own bits, we will wrap it up for you. They will come in three price points to suit your budget. What has the Farmer’s Kitchen got on offer? As the weather changes, we do a seasonal menu change. Autumn and winter will have some more comfort foods, like bangers and mash, as well as keeping the core favourites. We have a lovely squash pappardelle on the menu, as well as a bacon chop, too. It’s like a slice of smoked bacon as a chop, with a red wine and mushroom sauce, topped with a fried duck egg and Farndon Fields home grown chips on the side. It’s basically ham eggs and chips to the max! One of the best things about the menu changes for us is that we get to taste all the new dishes. What are the most important things for Farndon Fields over the coming months and years? The town has grown around us, and we have had customers that have been with us for 20-30 years. They are really passionate about us, and it is our responsibility to look after that relationship. We’re still a family-run independent business born out of a passion for growing and enjoying food, which is the core of everything we’ve ever done at Farndon Fields So, really, our future plans are to reinforce our history. We want to continue to shorten the supply chain wherever possible and have more ‘field to fork’ produce and products. Our plan is to diversify more into staples that we can supply from our own farm. We want to continue evolving what we grow, with an eye on unique and interesting varieties like Romanesque cauliflowers for example. We have lots of varieties of tomatoes that we grow, but the ones that go first are always the unusual ones! We’d also like to create an experience on the farm so people can come and see how things are produced. We are all about the enjoyment of food and the customer experience. We want to ensure a trip to Farndon Fields is always special for people as soon as they walk through the door. It’s easy for us to lose sight of how special it is sometimes as we are here every day, and always searching for things to improve, but our customers remind us why they love it, which gives us great pride and something we strive to reinforce with everything we do. Farndon Fields is open Mon–Sat 8.30am to 5.30pm and Sun 10am to 4pm on Farndon Road Market Harborough
farndonfields.co.uk |
Issue 23
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