The FarmED Podcast, Episode 2: Abby Allen, Director of Farming at Pipers Farm

Jan 20, 2025

The second episode of the new series of The FarmED Podcast (available from Thursday 23rd January) features Abby Allen, Director of Farming at Pipers Farm in Devon. Abby talks to FarmED Founder, Ian Wilkinson, about her role, how the Piper’s Farm model can be upscaled and her views on the future of regenerative farming. Of course there’s a hopeful takehome message too.

About Pipers Farm

Pipers Farm was founded by Peter and Henri Greig in 1989 as a reaction to the increasing industrialisation of farming. Today, Pipers Farm is run by Peter and Henri’s son Will and his partner Abby, who has the job of ensuring a consistent, sustainable approach across all of its farms. Pipers Farm works directly with a network of 50 small, independent, family-run farms, rearing high-quality meat using nature-friendly practices. At the heart of Pipers Farm is the belief that livestock should be reared ‘in harmony with nature’. It champions pasture-fed, native breeds and passionately campaigns for small-scale abattoirs.

Abby, who is not from a farming background, initially came to Pipers for a job interview based on her experience in sales and marketing. She says she could immediately see Pipers Farm's growth potential, and it now delivers more than 80,000 boxes around the country each year. Abby’s role means she spends a good deal of time thinking about nature-friendly food in a way that doesn’t stop at the farm gate but extends all the way to getting quality, sustainably-made produce onto people’s plates.

Visit their website: www.pipersfarm.com

Follow them on Instagram: @pipersfarm

About the FarmED Podcast

Hosted by our Public Engagement Coordinator and resident entomologist, Alex Dye and FarmED Co-Founder, Ian Wilkinson, The FarmED Podcast seeks to offer ‘hopeful conversations around farming, food, nature and the environment.’ At this crucial moment in time, when biodiversity loss and climate change is at the forefront of everyone’s minds, we hope these entertaining and important exchanges of knowledge with specialists in their field will offer thought-provoking ideas and inspiration.

Find the podcast on your preferred platform or watch on YouTube.

Please follow us on Instagram @TheFarmEDPodcast

Full Transcript

Welcome to the FarmED podcast. Abby Allen, welcome to FarmED and thanks so much for giving up some of your time today to talk to us about what you do at Pipers Farm, which I think is incredible. You're like me, a new entrant in farming. And like me, probably a little bit odd feeling with a microphone camera in front of us, don't you think? Yeah, a bit of a weird start, isn't it?

Totally terrified. And, you know, it never gets any less scary doing these things. I mean, it's such a pleasure and an honour to be here and to be able to sort of tell my story but and tell the story of the farm. But yeah, it's a terrifying experience every time.

I think, I mean, I think, you know, you're a young person. I remember my feelings really clearly when I was in agricultural college, actually. I was bizarrely elected the student president and I had to make speeches. And I've never done anything like that before in my life in my late teens early 20s and I was petrified to say the least and I remained petrified every time I had to stand on my hind legs for years until I don't know I'm still by the way always I always have anxiety about you know I'm apprehensive but yeah you get over it .

Yeah and that's really nice actually to hear because I think I've had that advice. I’ve done a few of these now and people say oh don't worry the more you do it gets easier and every time I'm thinking it doesn't feel any easier, it still feels terrifying. So it's nice that you've kind of come up the other side of it and you feel in a better place. 

You're very honest, I mean I think you know it's I'm sure all of us feel like you've just described and you know but I you know yeah you become more confident I guess don't you and you, you know become more familiar but but I've listened to a few of your podcasts and I don't think for you know and I know you know who you are and it's no I don't think you've got anything to worry about, actually.

I do think that's the thing that I like. I don't want it to hold me back. I think it's really important that you are able to have a bit of a platform and the opportunity to do these things that you do take the opportunity to cover.

You're a communicator. You're a natural communicator, I think. And this is what I'm guessing what your strength, that's why you're here, to talk about some of the biggest issues of our time. So, Abby, welcome. And so you're a non-farmer like me, actually, too. So what were you doing before you went farming? 

Oh, I did a whole load of different things. Funnily enough, we were talking about this earlier. I went to university and I had intentions to study a marketing degree, so media and PR and communications, and I actually found at uni I was spending more time working than I was studying and I kind of thought this seems mad. I'm naturally quite a busy person.

I'm not very good at like not having anything to do. So I left university, I did my first year,  left and I went out into the working world. So I started off in radio. I worked for GCAP at the time, which is now Global who own Heart and Classic FM, one of my favorite radio stations all the time. And I worked on the ground doing events for them and then worked my way up, became involved in marketing, then moved over to the sales side, was selling radio advertising, which I found incredibly soulless. And then I moved across working in publishing and again selling advertising, but actually with food and drink clients.

And it was there I really started to find who I am. I've always had this real passion for food, for cookery, for connecting people with food. And actually it was through that access to those chefs that I was like, there's something in this. So I then founded a business working with chefs, trying to put them in touch with partners, whether it was a really good green grocer, or fishmonger or butcher and then I found the gang at Pipers Farm. A chef mate said, these guys could really do with some help and I think you'd be quite good and I thought, I'm up for a bit of a challenge and I came for an interview and I thought everybody was totally mad.

Peter and Henri and Will, they had this huge argument in the middle of my interview and I thought God did this go horribly or did it go really well? I remember ringing my mum on the way back going I don't know, I really don't know and then Will offered me the job and really the rest is history and I'm just so thankful to Peter and Henri because I had no real experience. I had lots of experience in different things but not really for the job but they just took a bit of a punt on me and I guess it kind of paid off. 

I've known Peter and Henri for a while and I saw them last week actually and you know, they taught very fondly of you and I imagine that it must be a bit like a second set of parents. I don't know. I mean they are wonderful people, aren't they?

They are and you're completely right and it's just like having the most inspiring depth of knowledge and you know with Will and I sort of transitioning to taking over the business and now running the business, it's just amazing to know that I can just pick the phone up and they're there and normally something that we've experienced, they've experienced before and they can give you really good advice.

So what's it like coming into a business? Because I've done the same thing actually with Cotswold Seeds, I joined Robin and Susan Hill who started the business and they mentored me, they were like parents to me. And so I see in Peter and Henri a very similar situation with you and Will of course. What's it like coming in as I did? How do you feel about that? Because it's quite an old business in a way. How many years old is Pipers now?

35, yeah. Coming up just a little bit over that as well. Yeah, it's crazy. There's really good things about it and then there's challenges about it. So the good things are, you're coming to something established, they have an amazing reputation, the product is unbelievable. And I just really saw, well, we've got such a great opportunity here to just reach more people, to really open the door up and tell the story. And so, you know, much of that was great. There definitely are challenges. Family businesses are challenging.

Trying to change things is challenging, especially when, you know, it's been your life's work and you're very proud of it, having people come in and start saying actually I want to go in this direction, you know it does take time but I think it's about building trust, you know really building that relationship and then yeah I think we've got there in the end but you know it hasn't been plain sailing.

I mean there's always going to be change, I think any business that doesn't change is gone personally, I think you've got to adapt to the times and I think getting new, you know reflecting back on what I've seen and certainly in my own case, I think coming in with new ideas that are sometimes not well received, but you've got the energy, you've got youth and all those things that will be needed for the future. So I can see such tremendous potential for this synergy between youth and experience or wisdom. It's like combining those together. And you are an epitome of that, I think, you guys.

Thank you. Well, I think it's really powerful. We're very conscious of like, we don't want to, you know, we're not trying to reinvent anything, we're just trying to sort of propel it into the next generation. And it's really interesting to see, we're now in a role where we're bringing people in underneath us. And I find it quite interesting reflecting back on being a Peter and Henri ran the business. And we were sort of going, let's see this, let's see that. And there's sometimes there may be nervousness or hesitance or wanting a little bit more information. And it's interesting now being in a different position where I've got people underneath me who are coming to that and I'm behaving in a similar way going, okay, I don't want to dampen the enthusiasm, but we do just need to think about maybe a bit more deeply about where we're going.

So please tell me that these young people are saying, asking you about social media that you don't understand.

Yes.

Oh good.

Sometimes I sit in the room and I think, how am I the one that doesn't know anything about this? You know, I used to be the one that was, it was in the room doing that. And it is funny how, how you kind of evolve with it. But yeah.

Because your business is very strongly based on digital presence, isn't it? I mean, is that how you, how would you describe it? If you, is there a sort of business model that you, that you could describe that summarizes what Pipers Farm does?

Do you know what? I always find that question incredibly challenging. We do so many things and I think that's the one thing that a lot of people don't realise. Will and I talk about almost running three individual businesses. So we have the farming side where we're absolutely actively involved. We have 50 farms that farm for us. We're very much involved in everything going on on those farms and that's almost like its own whole enterprise plus our farm ourselves.

And then we have the butchery business where we're obviously hanging the product, cutting the product, it's very much focused on making sure we get the carcass balance right, what we're yielding, making sure we're not wasting too much. And then we have the fulfilment side of the business which is where the kind of marketing comes in, so it's getting that product out to customers and then it's all the customer service telling that story and they almost run as sort of three independent businesses although very, very connected.

You've got the farming side where you're a farmer too and you've got the farms that supply the business, you've got the processing side which is the butchery and then you've got the distribution and marketing or selling side and it's all that based on this apart from the farms obviously but is that all based on one site? 

No, so it used to be and then we, Will and Henri and Peter took the brave step to move it off the farm and I remember feeling a bit terrified thinking are we going to lose some of the essence of it not being on the farm and that storytelling aspect but I mean like all of the decisions. 

Well I guess there comes a point doesn't there where you can't do everything on the farm. I mean it was crazy. Because your farm, I went there years ago and it's on a slope. 

Yeah I was just going to say, having any flat ground is a real premium. So we ended up putting all these kind of temporary buildings up and we were propping them up with big logs of wood to try and level them out. And we have tarps and it was chaos. So we did, we sweated it right until the moment that we couldn't sweat it anymore. So we moved-

And then where did you go to?

Moved the butchery into Exeter. Again, just making it far more accessible for deliveries in from the abattoir. And then the fulfillment center is in Cullompton.

Okay, M5 connects you up nicely then.

Exactly.

So sort of 10 minutes between farm, butchery and fulfillment centre in between. So, yeah.

And which bit do you enjoy the most of those three elements? Farming, butchering and marketing, I suppose, or you know, distribution. Yeah, three quite different mindsets. 

I don't want to dodge the question but I love all three and I love them all in a different way. I mean I obviously love the farming and that's probably the thing that fills my cup the most and even on days where things go wrong, TB tests don't go to plan, you know I still just so appreciate the opportunity to be able to farm and there's never a day in my life I wake up and I don't value that and so that's you know that really is a big part of my heart and being able to connect with nature and have the privilege of being a farmer. But then I also find the butchery fascinating. I can be quite nerdy in the butchery because I've seen those animals out in real life on the farm grazing quite often I've put a hand on them to say you're ready. And then I get the benefit of seeing that carcass hang up and you see all that hard work and you can kind of see the consistency between them or the differences. And I find it really, really fascinating to try and connect what's going on on the farm to what then happens to that food.

Yeah, I agree.

I wanna ask you a bit about that, because, you know, obviously, you know, we have the farmed animals in the fields and then ultimately they end up in the butchery. But what about the middle bit? We need to talk about slaughter and how that happens and the challenges around that. I mean we've just lost our local slaughterhouse here, so many farmers in our district are really struggling with that, especially the small farms. What's it like in the South West? I mean I know you have farms elsewhere but most of your farms are in the South West. Do you have good facilities so that animals don't have to travel too far? 

So we're incredibly lucky and again I'd never take that for granted. I'm very actively involved in not just making sure that's luck, making sure that that functions. So I do work as part of the abattoir sector group. So I do spend a lot of time lobbying and supporting small scale abattoirs. We're very lucky. We have quite a lot on our doorstep in Devon, which is incredibly unusual and I think probably I would need to look at it but we're probably one of the most densely populated abattoir counties because obviously you know beef cheap is a huge part of Southwest production so that is that is great we we work with small-scale abattoirs directly but there are real challenges in other places in the country so I had some amazing farmers that approached me who are farming down in Cornwall. I had three or four of them and initially we had to travel the Bullocks up to Devon to have them slaughtered. We always normally say we don't want anything traveling for anything over an hour, an hour's absolute maximum because of the stress. But in that instance there was no opportunity, no other way that we could kind of access those farmers. So actually I worked with a small-scale abattoir in Cornwall. I badgered him relentlessly. I said, please let me slaughter my animals with you. And he was sort of initially a bit like, well, no, and I don't know if I can do it. And the challenge for him actually wasn't necessarily the slaughtering. It was them being able to deliver carcasses to us.

Yeah.

And thinking, have I got enough staff? You know, that's a man in a van. That's labour that could have been working in the abattoir. And I just was relentless and badgered and badgered and badgered. And I said, look, let's do something let me you know let's even if we have to put quite a big delivery charge on it let's just get this up and running and then we can see how we work together and hopefully I can start putting through more cattle and then actually it'll be worth your while and we did that and here we are and it's been it's been amazing and it's meant I can access those cattle in Cornwall which I was really struggling. 

It's really important to have those local links and I know you're very good at that and how do you how do you convey that information to your customers? Because I imagine that a lot of customers that are interested in buying from an organisation like Pipers Farm want to know the authenticity of the food, how it's produced and that would include the life it's had, the end of its life and also how then it's processed subsequently and goes on from there. So are you able to communicate that side of it?

Because I think it's a, for me, it's a missing piece of the storytelling.

Yeah, I've always told that story. I don't know whether it's, again, that sort of value of being a new entrant that you maybe see things slightly differently, maybe the naivety of that meant, I just went, well, why wouldn't we tell, you know, it's just important to talk about the breed, what it's eaten, you know, all of that stuff and how it's slaughtered. So I always have told that story, whether people wanted to hear it or not as well. Sometimes I've given people way too much information. They kind of go, oh, I don't really want that depth. But I think it's so vital if you're going to eat food, you really know where that's come from. You really understand. You know, that's one of my biggest bugbears that we sort of disassociate ourselves. And, you know, we remove ourselves from that kind of supply chain. And it does mean that we make weird choices. Whereas the more we connect ourselves with where foods come from and slaughter being absolutely a huge part of that, I think the quicker we'll transition to healthier food systems. So yeah, I mean, I put it in the cookbook. I'm probably the only person in the world that has got a cow pat and, you know, sorry about death in a recipe book. But no, I think it's vital.

Totally, we are so disconnected from, or the people that, all of us that eat food are so disconnected from the people that grow it for us. And all those other people, it's not just the farmers of course, it's all the other people in the chain. You often think it's just farmers, but of course it isn't. It's all of the processes that the food goes through that ultimately ends up on our plates.

And there are many, many more people in the chain, aren't there, than we realise.

Exactly, and it's about treating them fairly as well and paying them fairly and recognising the service that they offer.

It's a difficult, I imagine it must be, going back to the slaughterhouses, you know that's a tough gig, and I think people should deserve recognition for that clearly and it should be done as best as is possible clearly and I think that we have industrialised the thinking process haven't we and excluded that from our knowledge almost as an eater, but I think you're dead right, Abby. I 100% agree with you. We should know where our food comes from and be a part of that process. Otherwise we're not being true to ourselves ultimately.

Yeah, totally.

So your butchery is in Exeter. Yes. I know that because I went during COVID actually with some friends of mine. We came down to see what you were doing one day. And yeah, I mean, I was very impressed with that it was an amazing facility which I think at the time is quite new to you so it would have been 2020 I think. Yeah we would have not far off just moved in really I think it's about 2019 we moved in it's probably changed a bit since then yeah it's probably gonna change again because we're growing which is lovely and we're finding you know we need a bit more hanging space, because we hang every single, whether it's pigs, lambs, mutton, beef, everything is hung.

And your business then is those meats and also other products too, I know cheese, for example, you use that. But it's principally meat and other dairy products, or do you do other things too?

Yeah, we do all sorts of things. So the majority of what we sell is meat, so probably about 80% of our sales are in meat, which is amazing and supports all those small-scale farms. But we do also work with cheesemakers, dairy producing really lovely milk, lovely companies like Hodmedods, who are really revolutionising things. I'm so passionate about getting more pulses on the plate, beans, Bold Bean Company, they're another one of our, yeah, we have lots of amazing artisan producers that are kind of feeding into the network now.

Hodmedods is really interesting because it's such a new organisation really. I mean I know they've been going for a few years but they've really got the zeitgeist I think at the moment. And of course they are interested in alternative foods that we can grow in the UK which is first class and the peas and beans as an example of that. And it's not straightforward and they're taking loads of risk and they should be given full credit for doing just that. But it's without those, you know, you can't see where the next food sector, you know, the next part of the development of the food industry is going to be, but they are really pioneering and I'm so glad you're supporting them.

Totally. They're delicious. If you're thinking, I want to maybe reduce the meat intake, some people do, I don't like to tell people what they should and shouldn't eat, I think you should come to that kind of naturally based on how you physically feel. Having those pulses and beans and peas as part of your diet, even if you're a little bit less meat, a little bit more protein from lentils or something like that. I mean it's just delicious and it's totally common sense. It's actually how we used to eat a lot in this country before that kind of industrial revolution. They were really, you know, having mutton and beans and peas was a huge part. Yeah. 

I think you're right. I think the arable landscape can really do with some diversity in it, including livestock. But I think, you know, without really trying to grow those crops again, we're going to struggle. Because there is without doubt a worldwide conversation about the reduction in meats and particularly around beef seems to me, which I think in the UK isn't personally I don't think is absolutely appropriate at all, because we are a really good pasture based system when you think about it. And I suppose the question is, better quality maybe less, but better quality production wise which surely would be the answer for a temperate climate like the UK.

Yeah, and better quality definitely. Less is questionable. Again, it depends so much. You know, Will is six foot four, my other half. He needs a lot of protein for him to feel full.

He's a young person.

Yeah, he's busy, you know, and in his diet, needs to support that. You know, I'm different and I tend to survive on a more vegetable-based diet. You know, we're all very different. And I think that's the thing. That's what frustrates me a lot about sort of these kind of media titles and these very clickbait stories. It's very like one-size-fits-all.

And actually.

And it can't be. No. I mean, you know, you're, I always see it as a sort of global problems. Okay, we can see what the global problems are. But at the end of the day, you can't have, you don't get global solutions. You get local solutions. And so it has to be the context in which we work. And I was down at Land Alive with you last week.  We were ships in the night, weren't we? Yeah. We were both speakers. But I was really struck, as I always am when I go to the West country, the pasture system is clear to see. I mean, that's what it is. And equally, as you go to East Anglia, it's an arable system.

Yeah. And the magic of having those livestock on that landscape is unbelievable. You know, when anyone sort of challenges and says, oh, we should get rid of all the, you know, get rid of all the beef, they're just awful, they're ruining the planet. And I think, oh my God, if I were to take you just to walk on these farms and just feel that kind of connection and that, you know, nature, and I always talk about this like real healing of the landscape. When you get that balance right with livestock and that kind of integration, there's just this real feeling of kind of calmness and you can hear and you can see and you can feel nature all around you. And I just think to remove that animal from, you know, that's doing all of that work, those cowpats that are feeding that soil, you know, that feeding the bats and the birds and, you know, keeping everything kind of turning to, you know, to sort of naively extract that would have devastating consequences. But what we do need to do is just consider, you know, what is appropriate landscape and putting big sheds up and shutting cattle indoors is not that, you know, that isn't healing the land, that is causing us challenges. But when you get it right, there is pure magic and I'm, you know, very proud to tell that story.

Yeah, sympathetic farming. I mean, you talk very much about nature friendly farming, I know, in your in your comms to your customers. And do you call them customers? 

Yeah, yeah, they are customers. 

It's tricky isn't it to differentiate between the audiences that we're talking to. I guess you would use that word. But yeah, I think nature, I mean clearly nature friendly farming in the UK is a very important topic to most people in the country. I'm sure that's the case. And I think we do have to follow the markets and follow what people are after certainly but I think we can do that in harmony. 

Yeah and I think there's you know the missing piece of that is actually the resilience that nature-friendly farming gives the farmers so you know we've worked with conventional farmers who want to transition and actually what they do is you know they reduce those inputs all of a sudden the farm feels more manageable you know they're less running around, terrified, not knowing when they're going to get paid, feeling totally under pressure. They haven't got, you know, that burden of all those kind of, quite often there's a lot of debt involved in if you're putting up an intensive dairy or, you know, big machinery for certainly arable in the southwest. And the minute they kind of get off that hamster wheel, and actually they know what price they're going to be paid, because we've told them what the price is, so they can kind of work everything backwards. It just really changes that farm structure and actually most of the guys that we have had that have joined us that have come from that conventional route who move into a nature friendly farming system, they're more profitable and actually that's something that doesn't often get talked about and you kind of have this thing going, oh well in order to be more profitable I have to scale up, I have you know food security, we have to rip out those hedgerows and actually what we're proving is a lot of those farmers that had done that, that moved to that nature friendly way, they put those hedgerows back in which now you luckily can get paid to do a lot of that work.

You know they plant trees, they restore that biodiversity, they reduce those inputs, they don't have all of those big costs coming out of the bank account and they have more control over what the end price is going to be and actually the whole thing not only from a nature perspective feels more in harmony but also from running the business it's a more harmonious business. 

And the business element is very important and you can't be green if you're in the red as it were can you and so you need to pay your bills and and balance your books. Do you feel that by with the farmers that you're dealing with regularly that why are they profitable, is it is it because they're spending less money? I know you were generalising, but for other farmers thinking about adapting to a different looking landscape in the future in the UK, is it a question of having a better price and less cost. 

Yeah I think it is that it's a case-by-case basis every farm is unique and that's always the thing I'm really boring with this I don't like a sort of one brush fits all and you know oh well of course if you do if you grow red rubies that’ll work.

You've got red rubies of course haven't you? 

Yeah exactly and actually you might be better running some pastured hens or you might be better running some pigs or you know every farm is unique I think the thing that I see is it is that it's knowing what price you're going to be paid. So instead of having to be part of the commodities market where you know those prices fluctuate so much, that's more challenging. It is that thing of saying you might be paid more. I mean obviously sometimes the beef price shoots up and the lamb price shoots up and you have those kind of disturbances in the market. So that's where I say might be, but over a year you'll probably consistently paid more. But I think actually it's most of those farmers have been really clever with diversification. So by sort of getting off this hamster wheel and sort of chasing and having to work these crazy hours and being so relentless, they have the opportunity to say, actually, I might move to a mixed farm and run a bit of this, a bit of that, a bit of the other, and they find they're using those resources much better and they have kind of those different profit stretches within the farm and so there might be things that are maybe slightly more risky but give you the more reward but it's not kind of putting all your eggs in one basket so if you do have awful weather or the market suddenly dips you're completely screwed and they have that kind of resilience from running that mixed enterprise. 

Yeah I like the sound of that. I think we're all quite specialized in many respects, aren't we? But equally, you don't want all your eggs in one basket because that is so vulnerable, especially as a smaller business. So you're obviously successful, which the business is doing, I know, well, and which is a wonderful story. So you're building up something that gets bigger. So is the intention to make it really big?

Yeah, I'd love to. And I'm not ashamed of saying that at all. Sometimes people say, oh, you know, if you're big, big business and corporate and all of that stuff, and I think no, you can definitely do business at scale and not have that sort of horrible kind of corporateness about it. I mean, Peter and Henri always said they knew that they wanted this tapestry of farms. They never said we're going to move seven, we're going to buy 50 acres and then when we've exhausted that, we're going to see if we can grab you know some more land from the neighbours and we'll be 100 acres and 200. They always said the minute we grow we're going to bolt on another farm so the minute we need more beef we add somebody else in and like last year I put a call out to grow because we you know we were growing a number of lambs that we're putting through so we onboarded three new sheep farmers for us and you know we very much have that view of saying when we get to this, then we'll add another farmer. So when I joined the business, there was about 20 farmers, then it became 25. And then we sat at 25 for quite a while, and now we're over 50. And to be honest, I really should count them up at some point. But I can't see any reason why we couldn't be 100 farmers, 200 farmers. You know, it very much is if we can get more customers to really value and understand what it is we're producing and why it's so important and why it's so special and why it is you know so good for them then that's the goal really to go wild and I'd love to be yeah I'd love to take over the world really. 

Yeah the youth in you Abby, I love it. I wonder whether you get to a point where you need to have modules of those businesses to make it work whether you have more Pipers Farms in other parts of the country? I mean, I don't know. I'm just asking the question.

I'd love that. I mean, not only do I want to see our business grow and we have thought about that of hubs and maybe different, you know, butchery centres or things like that, definitely is things we've talked about. But I love the idea of having other people coming into this space. I'm a huge advocate. This is I will bore people to tears, but I'm a huge advocate of collaboration over competition because I think actually that will do more for the industry, more for our business, more for our farmers, more for many other farmers than us just sort of, I don't know what they call it, gatekeeping and saying, no, you can't play and we must control this sector. You know, there's an amazing farm down in Cornwall and they have just launched, you know, they've been working on over the years building like a Pipers Farm. And every time Kate posts and says, you know, we've done 1,200 orders this year, I would send her a message and go go for it. Keep going like that can be 2,000 that can be 5,000. I would love to see more people brave enough to enter this space.

Because I mean things are going to evolve and change and at the moment the supermarkets, the big ones have the dominant space don't they with most of the food that individuals buy being bought through them.

Yeah, I mean 95% I think 95% from eight retailers, which is crazy and funny enough. I did a talk last week about that and somebody said, oh well, that means you know that's actually a lack of opportunity. They've got the market control and I've said that's just I look at it a completely different way. If you've got eight eight big retailers controlling that marketplace, 95% of them, what would happen if just 5% bought from elsewhere. What would that do to those farmers? And maybe that 5% becomes 6% and then 7% and then 8% and then 10% and all of a sudden they have 80%. But actually that 10% is so meaningful to that small scale farmer and the good that that can do. Even in that small, you know, moving a percent here and there away from the supermarket would have such a real meaning.

There is a question around scale of farms, isn't there? Because you were talking specifically about small farms and inevitably you need a lot of small farms to make up the supply of a big farm or two, don't you, because some of the farms are massive now. Are you specifically centring around the cause of small farms yourself?

I think we're centered around family farms and independent farms, so it's a really difficult definition because not all of our farms are family farms either. Some people are new entrants and they don't have that kind of multi-generation. And also, again, I think you have to be careful with scale. There are some larger farms that farm in an amazing way. And again, it gives them the opportunity to have more diversity and use the farm for lots of different things. I think it's, again, it's about that system and that mindset and that person that is what we're really interested in, but we do also have to remember we get these kind of again this media narrative that you know farms are huge and the world's food is coming from these mega farms. Actually globally and here in the UK still small-scale family farms, small-scale farms are who are producing food. I think it's like 80% of food produced is produced on a small-scale farm. Yeah so you know again those big industrial units I think there's a real ticking time clock on them.I think it's bad business, it's a bad investment. Anyone that thinks I'm going to get into that, I think actually it's very short term. There's going to be so much pressure on, you know, what they're doing with their waste, what they're doing with their energy, all of this focus on, you know, scope one, two and three and how that's going to impact. I think actually the future is in small scale independent farms.

Yeah, it's a really lovely vision, isn't it? I mean, I, you know, because I, I mean, I've come when I started, appreciate I'm a bit older than you, but when I started, it was a lot of small farms. And I mean, they have grown massively over the years and, you know, I've witnessed that firsthand. And as you say, there's some really good big farms. Absolutely there is. But there's also, you know, I also like to see lots of small enterprises, you know, and, and the collaboration that you spoke about earlier on, I think is really key to that.

Yeah, I would love to see more collaboration certainly with estates, so large landowners who have access to land. I think if there could be something where there was more, a more kind of embracing of new entrants and giving maybe a market gardener an opportunity or someone to run some hens or if you have woodland to put some pigs through. I think there's definitely more we can do with land sharing and bringing in other people onto the land which would be really important. 

You've got to start somewhere. I mean you need some new entrants otherwise there won't be any and you know somebody has to say right I'm going to do that and it might be an estate owner, you know but somebody has to do it. I totally agree with you but I think they do. I think most people actually want to enable young people in, new entrants in and they're not always young but you know normally they are aren't they? So the brand seems to me like a really nice conduit, a way for a small farmer to do what the small new entrant or any farm for that matter wants to do really well which is farm and then through Pipers for example and others that might imitate you can find a route to market that isn't through those big eight supermarkets.

Totally. I think being founded by farmers has just stood us in such good stead. You know, Peter and Henri had that experience of going, there aren't the farm, then they need to sell the product, then they need to sort out invoicing and accounts, then they need to do customer service, then they need to butcher it. Then they need, you know, there are so many things if you're trying to sort of direct sell that, you know, and again, you only have so many specialisms. The reason you're a farmer probably is because that's what you absolutely love and adore. You might not be the best accountant, you might not be the best marketing person.

Or the best photographer.

Exactly.

Your photography is amazing.

Well, we're very lucky. How do you do that?

So I have an amazing photographer who has worked with me for over 10 years, and I think we're a bit like husband and wife, and he probably sometimes wants to put his hands around my neck because I can be really annoying. But no, he's absolutely unbelievable. And he actually used to work for the newspaper. He did a lot of not food stuff. And I said to him years ago, would you come and take some pictures of some food? And the rest is kind of history. So, but I do think, yeah, that point of saying, you focus on the farm, team up with somebody, and like be part of this kind of collaboration and this kind of connective, focus on the thing that you do really well, and then let somebody else kind of take care of that side of it. It's so, it just makes so much sense to me for the future.

Yeah, I think so. I don't think any of us are able to do the whole chain though. That's very clear, isn't it? And I think if you concentrate on what you're good at in life, you know, it just generates quite a good philosophy. And I'm sure that would resonate with a lot of people. So what's your advice to other people in other counties and other regions who are thinking about trying to connect eaters of food in their local patch to the producers of that food? I mean, I appreciate, you know, Pipers is one option, but where can they find more Pipers with more food with provenance and authenticity. I mean, you don't use certifications, I notice, because you make it very clear who your farmers are and you tell your story and you're quite transparent in that respect, as far as I can see. So, for the regular Joes out there like me, who want to support, you know, organisations like yours, how do we, you know, unless we know them, I mean, how do we find them?

Yeah, I think we have to build it, you know, that is where we're at. There's Pipers, there are one or two other people in this space, we are even in that space where there are one or two other people, we're quite unique. We need to build them actually, we need to create, you know, a Pipers in Cumbria that supports those farmers and I just want to say, you know, let's get together. I think the thing is, quite often people look at us now and see the scale we're at. We're still not massive by any stretch, but we're sizeable. We have these two offices and that kind of stuff, a butchery and a fulfilment centre. But we started on the farm. When I first joined the business over 10 years ago, I remember shouting up and down the office that, oh my God, we have a £75 order through the website isn’t this amazing and all ran around and you know, I used to do a nice a handwritten card to say thank you so much for you know, shopping with us. I wish I could still do that. I wish I could say thank you handwritten to every person that orders. But you know, that was where we started. That was 10 years ago. We're now delivering, you know, about 90,000 to 90,000 homes in the UK. You know, we'll feed about 70,000 people on Christmas Day. It's nuts where we've come.

And it's very seasonal, is it? You mentioned Christmas now. 

Yeah it is pretty seasonal. There's a huge focus on Christmas you know of course but you know again we're starting to see a little bit less of that seasonality, more of that coming throughout the year. Christmas is still huge but you know we have grown and that's what I would say to anybody. You can start now where we started and you can build it because I really believe there is the appetite from the customers there.

I'm sure there is.

We just need people brave enough and mad enough. You've got to be crazy to do it.

I think people that are driven. You mentioned Peter and Henri who are clearly very foresighted in their vision of doing something different. And yes, they are the champions as we know, and those are the people to find to really tell those stories. And I think, I mean, in the same way that Sustainable Food Trust has come recently to gather together Beacon Farms, to champion these amazing places that people can see and visit perhaps, and so on. I think, I feel in food that that's equally important. I know there's a slow food movement, for example, but you've got to be quite enthusiastic, haven't you? But I'm trying to find…

Yeah, you've got to be relentless.

Yes.

Where does a regular Joe go? Because if I'm sort of, you know, get off the train in London or something, which I do occasionally, and I say, said to somebody in the street there, well, where do you buy your food from? It probably is pre-made. Yeah. It's from a big system, big food system. And I really like the idea of having lots more choice. 

Definitely.

Not in the range of the shelf, but in the-

They are out there.

You currently have to work a bit harder for it. You know, we're very convenient. You can go online, you can have the delivery to your door and we take care of all of that stuff. And we track all the DPDs and it all kind of works quite well but there are lots of farms. Funnily enough, I did an Instagram story yesterday saying, of course you can buy from Pipers Farm, but actually there are all these amazing farms around the country that will direct sell. And I know some of them you might have to drive out to the farm gate or some of them the delivery charges, you know, is higher than Amazon would charge you, for example. But there are so many people selling amazing food around the country. You just kind of need to open your eyes to it and you need to go, this is maybe gonna be a little bit more uncomfortable than driving into a supermarket car park. To be honest, I'm saying that but I'm thinking I'm never comfortable. I hate going to a supermarket. I think it's one of the most unpleasant experiences. You drive into an awful car park where you have to battle with people and then you have to go into this horrible you know with the strip lighting and the just sterileness nd you know most of the staff are pretty grumpy and they're not particularly helpful, everything's wrapped in plastic, everything looks so miserable and actually I think it's so much more pleasure being able to pick up the phone to a farmer, go online, send somebody an Instagram message, drive up to a farm gate, have a conversation with somebody.

I've got a theory about this. I hear what you're saying. I also think in terms of wastage of our food and you know that we waste so much. I mean I think the figures are really horrible. You know 40% of our food is chucked away in one way or another around the world, especially in Western countries, where the amount of money we spend on food is lower than it would be in say, you know, another country where food poverty is a problem. We chuck away meat for example, still in its packets because of the way our system has become. I just find that incredibly unsatisfactory. Yeah. I mean, I would imagine, and I don't know whether you've got any stats on this, but I would imagine that people don't do that when they buy from Pipers because they know the story behind it. Well, part of the reason is, you know, we freeze, which is absolutely fundamental, because the first thing someone's going to do is going to put it in their freezer. And we do that process properly. And actually, you know, I've had an argument once with a chef, a Michelin star chef that was flying a few years ago. And he said, Oh, I don't want any of these. It's frozen food. I want it all to be fresh. And I said, look, let me come up. Let's, we'll defrost the steak there. And then we'll stick in some cold water. We'll thaw it. I'll bring you a fresh one and we'll do a blind taste test. And you tell me, A, which one's been frozen and B, which one you preferred. We did it. He couldn't tell me which one had been frozen. And the one he preferred was the frozen one. So the rest is history. Proofs in the eating always. So firstly, I think freezing is fundamental if you're dealing with whole carcasses and balancing the carcass. Again, we need to get rid of this whole narrative in the industry that freezing is a problem. It's our friend, you know, Michael Polan years ago was an advocate for it and we've all just kind of shut our ears to it, which is madness. But I do think you're right in terms of once people really understand the value of that food and they really know the care and the love that's gone into it and they have the faith that actually it's being produced properly. It's not full of all of these things that are going to kill you. It's not full of campylobacter and E. coli and all these terrifying things. You can treat it. You can treat meat like you would treat any other ingredient. It's not going to blow up in your oven and you're all going to die. Then they will waste less of it and they will manage it better and they will reconnect with their senses and smell it and touch it and feel it and you know really builds that kind of connection with the food. So I do believe that you will waste significantly less. 

I think it's so important I mean of all the things that we can do as humans to make a sustainable future you know one of them is don't waste the stuff we we grow on our land. I mean it's it is ridiculous. Well especially when we say oh this is too expensive, actually what's more expensive is driving your car to a supermarket using all of that fuel.

All that chain of events, all that plastic, beyond the farm gate. Exactly, the whole supply chain, all of the repacking, relabelling, all the plastic that goes involved, all those big lorry shipping, the landfill, the refrigeration, you know all the warehousing, there is so much cost wrapped up and that's even before we even talk about the farm. There is so much cost wrapped up. We are more transparent about what that cost is for that food. But that like you say I really do believe people waste a lot less when they buy from us or from other small-scale independent farmers.

I don't know. I don't know where you get the information from but it might be interesting to seek that information out, especially through your own customers because you might learn something that perhaps other people are missing. Yeah. I don't know but it's worth looking at any rate. I mean we've taken a lot of time and it's just gone like that and I don't know whether we've still got people listening but I need to ask you finally what your sort of take-home hopeful message is for because the world's a tricky place isn't it  these big headlines that we all you know see all the time as a polarised views on the world you know worry the heck out of everyone; what's your sort of hopeful message that you can leave us with?

Oh I'm so hopeful and it's probably one of the things I get the most criticism for is being so optimistic I had someone said oh you're looking at things through rose-tinted glasses and I thought no I'm looking at this because I'm actively engaged in this industry. My most hopeful message is I can't tell you guys enough the incredible passion, commitment, knowledge, enthusiasm, determination that exists within the farming industry. And all of these headlines are so negative, but actually what is happening on the ground are there are some amazing people who get up every single day, 365 days of the year and they commit to doing an amazing job. They commit to doing things that are going to benefit all of us from producing nourishing food from looking after our environment. You know, even things like when it floods or it snows, they're out clearing trees, they're clearing snow. They are doing so much for their community and they so deeply care.

And I think when you're surrounded by that and you see that you can't help but feel hopeful and optimistic. I just would love everybody in the country to have that connection that I'm really lucky enough to have and to realise that incredible value and really thank farmers for the amazing work they're doing. So when you're surrounded by a community of amazing people I'm so hopeful for our future because I know we're in safe hands.

Abby Allen, thank you. You are a great communicator and you are really shining a light on great farming and great food and thank you so much for being our guest today. 

Thank you so much for having me.