Our Growers
We source from farms all over the U.K. and Europe: these are the stories of two of them.
Strawberry Fields
We started working with Stawberry Fields 3 years ago, Pam and her sons Clyde and Dicken supply Root & Branch for most of the year.
"At Strawberry Fields we celebrate thirty years of organic growing in June. An island of thirty-eight black acres in a sea of grain, Strawberry Fields is situated ten miles North of Boston in the Lincolnshire Fens, at the foot of the Wolds.
I always say "by accident" when asked how we came to be growing organically. It wasn't a conscious decision, there was no agricultural background, no formal horticultural training - it was all trials and tribulations and learning by our own mistakes, of which there were plenty. We left a housing estate in Hertfordshire in 1975 with our guru, John Seymour's "A Complete Book of Self-sufficiency" in hand, the hippy ideals in our hearts. Goats, chickens, Grace the sow, sheep for spinning Robinson Crusoe garments, the whole shebang; we took the dream into the realms of eccentric extremes, only buying in salt and coffee. However, bills still had to be paid, electricity, water, rates and for these we began to sell the surplus of our veg, which was organic because we would not have dreamt otherwise. There wasn't an organic market in those days, just six of this and that to the local wholefood shop in Kings Lynn, the rest taking its chance on the conventional market.
Our loyalties at Strawberry Fields lie in supplying companies such as Root & Branch, where our produce retains its identity. We can't compete with the larger player, so we concentrate on what we love to do - growing "inspirational ingredients". Exotic and more unusual crops - all types of lettuce, celery, celeriac, kohl rabi, herbs, edible flowers, fennel, spinach different coloured chards, sweetcorn, assorted beetroots, wide range of squashes, pumpkins, courgettes and marrows, leeks, bunched onions, broad beans, pak choi, cavelonero, red and curly green - kale, spring greens ... etc. etc. etc.
And when the sun shines, I don't feel we have veered too far off the rose-scented path from that ideal in our heads three decades ago."
Pam Bowers
February 2005
Organic-Fairtrade
- changing the lives of banana farmers in Peru
Valle del Chira is part of AgroFair, the Europe-wide Fairtrade fruit company which is owned by the farmers who grow the fruit it exports. AgroFair helped the farmers establish the co-operative and gain Fairtrade certification. Its organic-Fairtrade fruit is branded Eko-Oké and it carries the international FAIRTRADE Mark.
The export trade is vital for Valle del Chira, as the local market cannot pay extra for certified organic bananas. Because logistics from Peru to Europe are so difficult, AgroFair has bought nearby export facility Bioganika on behalf of Valle del Chira to allow year-round international trading. The co-operative will gradually buy AgroFair's shares in Biorganika until it owns the export facility independently.
Fairtrade means changes to the daily lives of the hard-working farmers and the two hundred labourers who work with them. It can mean saying goodbye to roofs made of leaking mud, wood or badly rusting metal. It can mean a separate bed for the children instead of the whole family having to sleep together.
Thanks to AgroFair and the people of Valle del Chira, Root & Branch can offer you the best of both worlds, with bananas which are good for the environment and grown without pesticides - and which give producers in the developing world a fair deal.
All our bananas are brought to the UK by boat. Root & Branch never air freight any fruit or vegetables.
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Capel Organic Mushrooms
Back in 1961 Squadron Leader Peter Hearne wife and eight children embarked on what was to become an epic Mushroom adventure. Armed with very few skills except how to fly a fighter plane he set about forging a farm at the first site at Capel St Mary. Mushroom farming was very different from today, very little machinery very low yields but quite a high price. Times were hard as was the work but steady progress was made, expansion after expansion took place increasing production in line with the continued increase in demand. In the early 70’s we acquired a further site at Trimley near Felixstowe which provided a much needed platform for increased production. Shortly after this we started making our own compost at the Capel site. This was to prove a very advantageous move, in light of future developments.
In the mid 80’s we discovered that we were growing with less and less chemical input so a decision was taken to stop using them altogether. This was a nervous time but after a few mishaps and incredible attention to hygiene we achieved full organic status. This was all well and good but there was a very limited market for organic produce, but slowly the organic movement started to take off. The biggest blip during this time was an EEC directive requiring the compost to be made from organic straw. We moved a full two years before this came into force ensuring our supply of straw from all over the country, making us the only organic farm in the UK to make their own compost.
Farmer Kit
Kit has a thirty-two acre small holding deep in the Essex countryside at Little Bowsers Farm, Little Walden, near Saffron Walden. The farm has been Organic since 1998.
Kit has a ten acre organic top fruit orchard. The top fruit orchard produces organic apples, organic pears, organic cherries and organic plums. He also grows organic soft fruit; organic strawberries, organic raspberries and organic gooseberries.