The Best Organic, Farm 2 Fork, Pasture Raised Farm Box Schemes & Slow, Artisan Producers
Dear Reader, don't panic we are organic! This is the start of something fruitful and exciting! The Luminary Magazine Guide to buying exceptional organic, regenerative and pasture for life slow food from small farm box schemes not corporations, because real food is life, it is everything. I started supporting organic farmers when I was at university in Wales after reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. The book changed my life. It didn't make any sense to spray our food with toxic chemicals then and it doesn't now. I would rather make time to go to a farmers market or buy my food directly from the organic farmer who produced it with passion, love and time and nature.
Organic Food as Medicine
It is time to vote with our wallets. Food is medicine or it is a poison grown with pesticides that are killing our bees, key pollinators and biodiversity. The chemicals in our food are also driving an epidemic in chronic disease. Ditch the mirage of convenience, buy ingredients not ultra processed food and rediscover the pleasure of slow cooking and leftovers!
Robert Kennedy Junior and the Maha Movement
I am beginning this guide with British organic farmers and small producers and I will start to add organic and regenerative farmers in America, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Holland, Portugal, Eastern Europe, Africa, India and the rest of the globe. From little acorns a movement is emerging inspired by Robert Kennedy Junior and MAHA.
I want to know all about your favourite organic family farm or small producer. Email me about your hero local organic and regenerative farm, farmers market or slow and small producer - LuminaryMagEditorAJ@proton.me
A Lament for the High Street Butcher and Baker
I was lucky to grow up in a small English town with a traditional butcher who reared grass-fed meat of rare and delicious quality in the Berkshire countryside. The butcher's shop smelt of wet sawdust and sweet, pasture-raised meat and I would watch with wonder and curiosity as the butcher discussed classical cuts of meat with my mother for a Sunday roast, mid-week dinner or a Christmas feast. My family would fight over the delicious white breast meat from the Sunday roast organic chicken. Now I love the dark meat as much as the white because it tender and tasty.
The Magic of the High Street, Rooted in Place and Terroir
The butcher's shop disappeared two decades ago to be replaced by a fast food outlet and supermarket. I also miss the bustling bakery where my mum would take me for a sticky florentine and milky, frothy coffee after my Saturday cinema club. I still love florentines. Our High Streets are no longer vibrant, exciting places to meet up and buy real food grown and produced by local farmers and artisans.
Now is the time to bring small shops and markets back, rooted in terroir and create a delicious farm-led renaissance for the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. Shall we begin?
Alison Jane - Editor and Founder, The Luminaries Magazine.
Gazegill Organic Farm and No 8 Restaurant
Gazegill Organic Farm has been farmed by the Robinson Family and their successive heirs for 500 years. The word Gazegill is mentioned in the Doomsday Book. Emma Robinson and Ian O'Reilly are the current custodians and they are passionate about the land.
The mixed organic regenerative farm offers a nationwide box delivery of its certified organic and pasture-raised organic meat, raw milk and specialist artisan organic cheeses from all corners of the UK. The farm has its own butchery and there is a plethora of organic meat cuts from whole roasts, to steaks, both opulent and thrifty, good value burger and sausage boxes, delicious chicken livers, mutton, lamb, offal and veal.
Editor's note. I am thrilled to see they are stockists for Teifi organic cheese from Wales. Teifi is a delicious, bright golden yellow cheese with a very pleasing sweet, nutty flavour and a satisfying texture. I discovered this distinctive cheese via the Soil Association more than a decade ago at an organic trade show at Olympia. One bite and I was hooked.
There's a well-stocked delicatessen selling a range of store cupboard staples, including eggs, yogurt, dried goods, broths, condiments, non alcoholic drinks, oils, beer and wine.
What we love - the sweet delicious raw milk which tastes so different to pasteurised and homogenised milk. Worth the money and a star buy would be the delicious whole organic chickens. They offer a complex depth of flavour and tender, delicious organic white and dark meat. This is what chicken is supposed to taste like. The meat is robust and gamey in flavour. The boxes of sausages and pasture raised burger boxes are also an excellent buy for the freezer and weekday meals. Sausages are offered either plump or skinny. It's your choice. The lamb burger with mint is absolutely delicious and so are the gluten free sausages, especially the black pudding sausages, which become crumbly and melting during cooking.
Packaging - A gold star for the superb, plastic free cardboard box packaging.
Delivery - The delivery is fast and efficient and it is free when you spend over £75.00. It takes about 2-3 working days depending on which day you place your order.
Gazegill Farm also showcases its organic produce within its own restaurant, Eight at Gazegill. The chef patron is Doug Crampton.
Eight at Gazehill
Scotland
Peelham Farm Organic Box Scheme
Peelham is a regenerative pasture for life organic farm located in Berwickshire, Scotland. The founders Chris and Denise Walton in partnership with Amanda Cayley (now retired) are passionate about looking after the soil and terroir.
Peelham Farm offers a fantastic array of certified organic pasture for life beef, lamb, mutton, free range pork and their award-winning, scrumptious artisan free range charcuterie. The charcuterie is so delicious that it frequently sells out. (Please note that the charcuterie was certified organic. Due to the current crisis in pig farming in the UK, Peelham Farm now sources its meat from the farmer over the hill for high welfare free range pork). This is why we all need to support our farmers right now.
What we love - The wide range of produce and especially the delicious, authentic charcuterie, from red wine salami to fragrant, silken air dried meats to rival the great Italian producers. Look out for the melt in the mouth gluten free rolled organic beef olives, ready to be slowed cooked, with minimal ingredients. Other best buys include the bijou pigs in blankets, flavoursome bacon, skinny sausages and organic juicy mutton mince for the perfect shepherd's pie.
The farm also offers on site butchery courses.
Try an Organic Butchery Course
Delivery - Peelham Farm offers a nationwide and local delivery and collection service from the farm. Look out for punitive charges if you happen to live on an English island as I do! It's a shame that some courier companies use this as an excuse to make excessive charges. APC suddenly increased the courier charge from £7.95 to over £21.00 to deliver to me, the editor of this magazine on the Isle of Wight. There is no justification for this as the other featured organic box schemes either make delivery free over an average spend of £75.00/£80.00 or there is a reasonable small charge. I hope something can be done about this.
Farm Ethos
Farm 2 Fork
Dalditch Farm trading as Farm 2 Fork rears organic, pasture for life meat with an exceptional depth of flavour, quality and freshness. The animals graze on the rolling green hills of Budleigh Salterton, Devon. The quality of the meat is spectacular. All the meat we have tried from their organic box delivery has been absolutely scrumptious. The farm specialises in beef, chicken, lamb, mutton, goose and turkey.
What we love - the quality of the whole chickens is exceptional. The meat has a complex, gamey, melt in the mouth flavour and texture. The beef stewing steak and beef sausages are also delicious, tender and very versatile. Editor - I like to use the sausages cold in a salad as they remain firm and hold their texture. The beef burgers are the best this editor has tasted from four or five different organic farms.
Delivery. Delivery is free to most parts of mainland UK when you spend over £100. The delivery cost for such far flung parts of the British Isles such as the Isle of Wight, is a reasonable £6.50. However, I don't understand why some farms don't charge at all and others do.
Food and Forest - Native British and European Organic Nuts
Food and Forest grows and sources native organic nuts of exceptional quality, taste and freshness. The nuts are farmed with careful stewardship for the land without pesticides and other chemical inputs. The nutalicious stars include sensational golden, creamy yellow English and French walnuts to Kent cob nuts and prized Tonda Gentile hazelnuts from Italy.
Food and Forest is an agro forestry community interest company based in Kent and Borough Market, London.
Did you know there are many of varieties of walnuts? Food and Forest grows around 20 varieties in its orchards in Kent. So, how do you like you walnuts to taste? Do you prefer crunch or creaminess? You can work you way through the different varieties at Food and Forest, especially if you can visit the producer at their popular stall at Borough Market in London.
What We Love. It is hard to source high quality nuts in our ultra processed world. Supermarket nuts often over processed with seed oils, sugar and taste stale.
Food and Forest offers the freshest, high quality organic nuts from shell on English walnuts which are an absolute treat for any nut connoisseur, zingy savoury nuts in exciting flavour combinations such as exotic saffron and lime cashew nuts from India. This small producer also offers nut oils and baking essentials such as blanched almonds and ground almond flour.
Riverford Organic
Riverford Organic started an organic food revolution when Guy Singh-Watson, its founder and self-confessed veg guru started delivering organic veg to his friends in 1986. Now Riverford is owned by its employees and delivers upwards of 50,000 boxes of organic veg, meat and fish to customers across the UK every week.
The focus is on seasonal boxes of organic veg, fruit and veg and meat and sustainable fish, together with recipe boxes to inspire you to try different recipes according to whats in season. Riverford also offers pantry staples such as organic eggs, the wonderful Brown Cow yoghurt, organic artisan sourdough bread and a selection of British organic, artisan cheeses.
What We Love
The quality and seasonal variety of Riverford Organic produce is so good, it is a joy to receive a box of organic meat and veg in the distinctive cardboard boxes with compostable packaging. If only Riverford delivered to the exotic Isle of Wight!
Delivery - please check you postcode as Riverford doesn't cover all areas of the UK.
Riverford Organic
Abel and Cole
Abel and Cole is one of the oldest organic box schemes in the UK and offers an impressive array of organic staples from organic meat, fish, dairy, fruit, vegetables, dried good, a bakery and cut British flowers. Every week the company that started out delivering organic spuds provides organic staples to 40,000 homes across London and the south east of England.
What We Love
The variety, quality and provenance of the organic food on offer by Abel and Cole is exciting. Abel and Cole is a showcase of made in Britain, small, organic producers from organic milk from Guernsey and Devon, nitrate free bacon from organic farmer Helen Browning, three-cornered leeks from Cheshire (use like chives) , pasture for life meat from the Green Butcher and slow fermented sourdough bread from the Authentic Bread Company.
Look out for interesting English and European organic sparkling wines, craft beer, patisserie and cakes. It's great to see a company that really tries to reduce the menace of plastic packaging. Abel and Cole offers a refill and returns service. It would be good to see more organic companies lead the way to switch to plastic free packaging.
Delivery - Please check your postcode to see if Abel and Cole delivers to your area. Abel and Cole doesn't over nationwide delivery.
A few more ideas!
Waterford Distillery
Waterford Distillery produces organic and biodynamic whisky in the style of grand cru wines in southern Ireland. The distillery was founded by wine entrepreneur Mark Reynier with the anarchic idea of focusing on terroir and ancient grains. The star of the distillery is the Biodynamic Cuvee Luna. Luna is an intense, delicious whisky which tastes like Christmas Pudding. Waterford Distillery is now the largest producer of organic and biodynamic wines and produces an exciting stable of limited edition organic single malts. The distillery also works with 101 small farms in southern Ireland and this is a victory for the soil and biodiversity.
Borough Market
Borough Market
There has been a market beside the Thames for a thousand years. The current slow food market was founded in 1756. This is London's great bustling market for lovers of organic and slow food to come and meet the farmer and small producer from every corner of England's emerald island. Buy a delicious coffee or organic pain au chocolate and come and meet the farmer or producer who made your food to enjoy throughout the seasons. Highlights include - Oliveology for authentic organic greek foods from exceptional olive oil and olives, speciality Greek cheese, nuts, organic honey, wild crafted herbs and dried goods, 13 Acre Orchard for regenerative fruits and vegetables, Furniss Fish Markets wild fish and shellfish, Hook and Son scrumptious golden raw milk and thick cream and Northfield Farm regenerative and rare breed meat produced on Jan McCourt's family farm located on the Leicestershire Rutland border.
Copyright The Luminaries Magazine/Alison Jane Reid November 2024. All Rights Reserved. No copying or usage in any format without written agreement.
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