Tom could you tell us a bit about Chefs Farm?

Chefs Farm is a fresh-produce wholesaling, B2B company. We provide produce to the hospitality and catering sectors and to farm shops. This year, we were delighted to provide the Baftas with their fruit and vegetables and we also helped to write their menu as well.

How did Chefs Farm start?

I had initially looked at growing herbs for natural cosmetics. But then we came across a company who were doing food wholesaling and the owners wanted to retire and sell their company. At the time, the business was very micro scale, and they were called Chefs Herbs. They were keen for us to purchase the company, but we weren't really in a position to do that and so we set up a payment period instead. Since then we haven’t looked back and we've developed the company from one that purchases from 30 producers to one that buys from 300 producers.

The produce growers are predominantly based in Sussex. In particular, a lot of them are based the south side of the Downs, such as the Chichester plains, as the ground there was originally covered by the sea which has resulted in very silty, loamy earth with a good soil structure and high fertility. There are many glasshouses in this area, growing all sorts of things - for example, there are some 30 tons of berries picked each week. However, we also have producers from Suffolk, Lincolnshire and Kent. It very much depends what we are sourcing at particular times of the year. For example, Kent produces a lot of apples and pears in the Autumn, and root vegetable too. We also have one producer in Italy and one in Spain for produce such as citrus fruit and for items which people want to buy at Christmas time, such as dates.

How does the wholesaling process work?

We don't actually grow anything ourselves. Everything comes to us picked and we deliver it to our customers within 24 hours. We don't have much storage facility so once produce arrives, we send it out on our vans at 9 pm, and these then return the following morning, having delivered predominantly to the southeast and London areas. In total we wholesale around two and a half tons of products. We utilize technology as far as possible and so we have, for example, an app, plus we have introduced automation as much as possible. 

How did you first become interested in the concept of food production?

Well, when I was at Hurst, I thought perhaps I might do photography and for A levels I did Photography, Business Studies and BTEC Sport.  But after A levels, I went off to Cookery College for six months and did a Cordon Bleu cookery course, as that’s always been something that I've been really interested in, and after that I worked in Switzerland for six months. Following Switzerland, I decided to go to New Zealand, and I worked there for a year on a farm, growing potatoes and asparagus and became their Head of Asparagus Growing.

This really sparked my interest in food production and growing. In New Zealand, it's very commonplace for them to export almost everything they grow. This seemed most peculiar to me and so therefore, when I came back, I became interested in the idea of growing food on a more local scale and decided to go to Cirencester to learn more about food production.
 

Interestingly, at the same time, fellow OJs and good friends of mine, Ed Howard and Will Freeman were also there! I did a three-year course called Supply Chain and Logistics Management. After that, I started my research, looking into various ideas and putting together business plans. First of all, as mentioned above, we looked at growing herbs for cosmetics. But we decided against this eventually because there are some very big players in the cosmetics world and it would have been very difficult to make any headway.

So we began to look elsewhere, basing our search on my experiences in New Zealand and my chefing knowledge. After some time, we came across the Chefs Herbs business and realized this was the way to go. And here we are!