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Genesis group is a revelation for community
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| Genesis farmer Andy Foot delivering fresh meat |
IT should be straightforward. We live in a county whose principal industry, at least traditionally, is agriculture. We are surrounded by green fields in which animals frolic and poultry peck. Yet the meat and poultry we buy from the supermarkets so often hail from much further afield, arriving on our plates with a hefty carbon footprint.
Genesis Farmers offer an alternative. The group - who are keen to point out they are not an ageing rock band - wanted a way of selling produce directly to local customers.
"Our meat comes from the fields around you," says Anne Fletcher, one of the directors of the company. "What we are about in essence is local farmers feeding the local community. Farmers' markets might happen once a month in a town, but what was missing was an organisation that could make local food available to the community, but on some scale."
Genesis Farmers started in 2006 with a group of five people sitting around Anne's kitchen table at The Old Farmhouse in Buckland Newton. These five were Andy Foot and Jim Sturmey, both beef farmers, Robert Lasseter, a pig farmer, Richard Gordon-Head, who comes from a farming family in Cumbria and whose idea Genesis Farmers was and Anne, who alongside Richard researched and developed the Genesis Farmers idea.
"The birth of Genesis Farmers coincided with the end of subsidy era and in particular farmers were concerned that they had to have routes to their markets," says Anne. But the project was also driven by the concern that we have lost touch with the landscape and become ignorant of, and desensitised to, the natural environment. The group wanted to find a way of reconnecting people to farming, food and the value of natural resources.
How it works is that the livestock comes straight from 14 or 15 farmers in Dorset (the company directors can be suppliers, but they are not the only suppliers), via the local abattoir, to Genesis Farmers' base in Buckland Newton where it is cut, packed by a team of butchers and delivered straight to the local customer.
Anne explains: "It's all responsibly produced; we are not organic because if you go over to organic you cut out a lot of responsible farming practice. The beef is grass-fed. The chicken is free range. We mature all the food properly; it does taste different."
The prices, Anne says, compare with Tesco Finest or Tesco Organic, but she adds: "It's not price sensitive."
Genesis Farmers has done well over the last two years, developing a large customer base of retail customers, pubs, quality restaurants such as Alibis and Sienna in Dorchester and schools. A relatively new development is the use of local shops such as Cerne Abbas Stores, Charlton Down village shop and Londis on the Abbotsbury Road, Weymouth, which the farmers frequent at particular times each week with a selection of beef, pork, lamb and poultry.
Anne explains: "We bring a selection of our stock with us and people can come in and buy on spec. We the farmers are there so it's like a mini-farmers' market inside the shop. For some reason, everyone loves the faggots, so they can come in and buy them or they can order them and pick them up the next week.
"It also centralises the delivery. The local community comes to the local shop; in terms of carbon emission it makes sense. The shopkeepers benefit and the local community appreciates it as well. The bottom line is that nothing we do is frozen. Everything travels a very short distance by the time it arrives in Weymouth or wherever.
"You do not have to drive there, you can walk there and we've realised how important local shops are as community centres. Most people use it for something they've forgotten. It's meant to be a different supply chain. It's never going to replace the supermarkets as long as people want endless volume and endless choice. But we are trying to emphasise village shopping rather than supermarket shopping. You could probably get enough to get you through a couple of days or a weekend. One woman said to me, At least I don't have to go to the supermarket.' People can be relieved not to have to go."
She adds: "In the shops, we supply recipes for people and ideas about what people can do with the meat. Our work in schools is very important too."
In addition to supplying The Gryphon School, Sherborne Preparatory School, eight schools around Bridport via the Centre for Local Food and Thornfood School Meals Club, Genesis Farmers do school visits to work with teachers to build awareness about sustainable food, farming and energy issues.
As for the future of Genesis Farmers, Anne says: "We have been approached by restaurants in London and we have said no. But ideally we would like a business in Surrey to take it up. What we ultimately want to do is to package up the whole thing and to make it possible for other groups to do it."
Genesis Farmers, Anne explains, is very much a business rather than a co-operative.
"It's a business that we set up as a limited company that we own ourselves. What we have developed is a business format that's worked for us because we've proved it. The next stage is for us to package the system up, so we can pass it on to others."
What Genesis Farmers would like to see is their prototype adopted in other regions, so that all over the country, local farmers would be supplying local people with locally produced food. The best plans, they say, are the simple ones.
For a price list or to order from Genesis Farmers, call 01300 345 388 or email info@genesisfamers.co.uk
A Genesis Farmers supper club event will take place on May 15 at 7pm at Moonfleet Manor Hotel. The evening is an opportunity to learn more about Genesis Farmers and sample its high quality meat which Tony Smith, head chef at Moonfleet Manor hotel, will use in a specially created menu for the evening. The menu price is £40 per head with a donation of £2.50 to the Weldmar Hospicecare Trust. For more information or to book a table, contact Lisa Worthington on 01305 786948.
8:48am Monday 28th April 2008
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