Current Position

Our Farm shop has sold locally sourced, artisan foods for over 25 years. It started as a barrow on the side of the road and slowly grew into something much more. It currently stocks over a thousand ambient products as well as a considerable range of deli foods and ready meals, made in our own kitchens.

We source our products from many British suppliers, putting money into the local economy, rather than the corporate sector. The current Farm shop employs 6 people.

We already produce some excellent fine foods, however, the current structure has limits on productivity and cannot meet the growing demand. 

We already produce some pretty fine foods. However, this is already very taxing on our infrastructure and we do not have the space to do more as our restaurant chefs can only do so much in their little kitchen!

​

We currently produce the following:

​

• Freshly scratch baked bread as opposed to mass produced in Holland and then finished in a supermarket and labelled as fresh.

• A range of Ready meals, fresh to take away.

• A range of Puddings, fresh and frozen

• A large range of cakes to eat in the restaurant/take away.

• Baked deli-goods like tarts, quiches, pork pies etc

These are some of the local, small artisans that we already support.

Blackburne & Hayes- Churt

Goodwood Farm- Goodwood

Tunworth Dairy- Alton

Perfect Pickles- Petersfield

Graham Marshal- Headley

Monie McGeorge- Grayshott

Belinda Clarke- Romsey

Plum Perfection- East Grinstead

My Chocolate Gallery- Romsey

Hampshire Honey- Grayshott

Cusacks- Tadworth

Sussex Valley- Chichester

The Garlic Valley- Isle of wight

​

Apologies to the 43 other producers who I have run out of space to fit here!

Horsham Gingerbread- Horsham

Mummy Makes Fudge- Chichester

Hog's Back Brewery- Guildford

Suthwyk Ales- Farnham

Mr Whiteheads Cider- Alton

Andwell Brewing Company- Hook

The Granary- Haslemere

Montezuma's Chocolate- Birdham

Rawlins - Guildford

Love for Local- West Sussex

Court Lodge- Hailsham

Gingers Kitchen- Billingshurst

Hada Del Cafe- Midhurst

Coco Loco- Horsham

The Real Pie Co- Crawley

Dean Farm- Kingsley

The Food Hall Vision

Unlike the traditional farm shop model, Applegarth Food Hall will offer the finest foods to a discerning well-travelled and experienced consumer. The plan is to create a stunning Farm shop foodhall that fuses foodservice with food retail, allowing the customer not only to buy the food to take away but also eat the same food in-house.

This will be a location that combines the immediacy and vibrancy of street food production with old school and trusted purveyors of artisan food. The combination will deliver a vibrant market style retail environment with separate shop areas that specialist food retailers can lease. This will be a location that sees food retail as theatre, putting on weekly food production demos from its chefs and retailers thereby involving customers in the food production journey.  The cookery school will be located within the building and is central to the way foods are merchandised with demos and workshops.

​

The customer journey starts with an impressive view of a light and airy food hall. There will be signs with words of welcome and clear directional indicators to ensure that all shoppers have the chance to explore each department. The hall will be sectioned to provide an easily navigable customer journey and identify food shopping departments. Throughout the hall there will be ceiling suspended signs indicating the various sections.

​

Lighting will be planned to enhance the display of foods.  

There will be a hum of work and enticing smells. There will be a strong emphasis on customer service, warm welcomes and a well-trained and knowledgeable team.

Outside the entrance will be an enticing and well planned market stall display of seasonal fruit and vegetables that will offer home and locally grown fruit and vegetable supplemented by selected options from further afield. Whilst external this will be under the buildings own cover.  

Arrival is through the shop’s dedicated double doors. Shoppers will be able to choose from baskets or sustainably made trolleys to stock their shopping requirements.

​

​

What is it?  

-7000 sq ft. retail space providing a broad range of artisan foods and space for producers.

-

What will it retail?

Local, artisan, produced, grown and reared foods. Foods produced in our kitchens & grown in our greenhouse & market garden.

​

Employment:

2 full time, 2 part time. 

Education & agri-tourism  

Lessons in Aeroponic growing, micro herb production, other types of hydroponic & hyperlocal horticulture.

Business Snapshot

Defining the offer

All foods will from be within the following: -

• Locally sourced

• British – with regional integrity

• International – best of breed and with a story – i.e. artisan production, defined location, family enterprise.

• All will be justified by quality – and tested

​Full service kitchen    

The beating heart of the food hall, it will provide a considerable range of foods produced in house by a team of chefs. The kitchen will be open plan to provide accountability and transparency and enhance the theatrical feel of the food hall. The customer will be able to talk to the chefs, ask for special foods to be produced and question the provenance of the ingredients. An outside catering facility will also provide foods to be produced for a special occasion such as for a dinner party or wedding.

Ready Meals & desserts    

Ready meals continue to grow in popularity with sales of £3.1 billion in the UK in 2015. The fastest growth is in the  premium brands such as Charlie Bigham and Cook who use good quality ingredients with a good protein ratio to tempt shoppers into purchasing. We feel that there is considerable potential for both a frozen and fresh range of ready meals sold in a prepack form produced in our own kitchens in front of the customer.   The next major growth sector in this area is deemed to be  meal kits with part cooked ingredients  taken away and finished at home. This would  be easily achievable with the various sectors  sectors in the food hall.

Patisserie & Cake Bar    

In the local area, if you want to purchase freshly made, hand produced patisserie you would currently need to travel 20 miles. We have demonstrated that there is a gap in the local market for a location that sells patisserie, for birthdays, anniversaries and weddings or simply to take home and indulge. Our kitchens will produce a good range of patisserie from a rich Gateau to a clean Tarte au Citron.

The bakery counter will be staff serving with a range of locally baked breads, homemade cakes, cookies, biscuits, fresh cream cakes, seasonal offerings such as mince pies and Christmas puddings. It is also hoped to include a serveover counter for ice cream during the warmer months. 

We will create both an online pre-order facility and exceptional delicatessen display to drive sales.

Delicatessen Counter- street food style

Butchers Counter 

Good meat is about provenance and having a relationship with the person that raised the animal. It's about offering the age old skills that come with years of experience of butchering meat. It's about butchering every aspect of the meat on site, providing any cut a customer wants and if desired, aging it further for them. 

Our counter will provide customers with a transparent, caring and friendly location to buy a good range of both locally sourced and unique sources of meat. It will be old school in its service but modern in its provision of some of the more interesting cuts. It will be highly symbiotic in its relationship with the foodhall and cookery school by providing regular butchery demonstrations and lessons.

​

The butchery counter with a well stocked serve over counter staffed by experienced butchers. They will have displays of fresh meat, offering on site hung beef as well as pork and lamb from local farms, game, homemade sausages and bacon, cured meats, pâtés, scotch eggs, pork pies and other house made items. Staff will be knowledgeable and available to discuss customers’ requests and offer solutions. Behind the butcher will be a well displayed ageing shelf with cuts of meat dry ageing with a Himalayan salt wall. Whilst the formula of fantastic meat starts in the field, there are many elements that affect quality that lie in the hands of a butchery team. This ranges from the cold storage, hanging and rotating the meat, to the skilled butchers putting the finishing touches to every pork chop and Sunday roast. We will dry-age all of our beef in-house to a minimum of 28 days. A selection of primals with a good coverage of fat will be chosen to be aged for longer, producing steaks and roasting joints to cater for every palate.

​

All sausages and burgers will be made by hand by our skilled butchery team, who will manage everything from mincing and mixing to curing and cold-smoking. Our sausages are filled into natural casings and made using the same highest quality meat that we will sell over the counter. Our bacon and gammons will be cured either by hand-salting or using a traditional brine.

In front of the butchery will be a well-stocked self-serve display of pre packed meats from the butchery for those with less time. 

Exceptional Cheese room

There are very few outlets locally that provide an amazing cheese offering and we want to remedy that.
The Cheese Room is a self contained room for customers to access that is installed for the maximum protection and development of (affinage) of cheese.  It will be specially equipped to allow us to offer wonderful cheeses at their most delicious - aged to perfection and in prime condition.  We will actively encourage you to try before you buy, then our experts will cut and wrap your choice in our special waxed paper to keep it at its best in your own fridge. 
 
Our Cheese room will specialise in selling artisan cheeses made on family farms in the British Isles. We will work with cheesemakers that value the quality of what they produce and whose practices sustain our environment and cultural heritage. They produce food with a story - a provenance and place. Many of these cheeses reflect the unique climate and culture of a given region, others channel the taste and inventiveness of their maker, often drawing inspiration from European cheesemaking traditions and applying them to British terroirs. The quality and flavour of each cheese is a reflection of the biodiversity of the farm along with the astute interventions made by cheesemakers and affineurs.
The cheese room will work closely with the cookery school, organising cheese courses, workshops or demonstrations.

Fresh fish

Continuing along the same side, beyond the butchery will be a (see alternative) wet fish counter. 

This will be traditionally laid out with an emphasis on freshness, sustainability and seasonality. We will only use carefully selected suppliers with the majority coming from day boats. Aside from the fish counter you will also find a great range of smoked salmon, gravadlax and fish pâtés as well as sauces and marinades. For those looking for an extra treat, we will source lobsters, oysters and whole crabs as well as prepare seafood and dressed salmon platters. Our customers are increasingly concerned about the sustainability of fishing, in terms of the species caught and the methods used to catch them. We are committed to supporting sustainable fishing techniques. All staffed will be experienced, knowledgeable fishmongers who hand pick the best fish and seafood every morning.

Market Garden and Seedleaves.com driven Fruit and Veg Display

We want to replicate that feel that you have when you walk into a bustling French market where you know that the fruit and veg is of excellent quality, is perfectly ripe and wherever possible locally grown. Our Leaf of Faith greenhouse is a key part of creating this vision as well as our existing links with very localised micro growers from whom we currently purchase. The growing towers will supply a substantial part of our fresh produce and makes Applegarth virtually unique in this aspect. With education, low food miles, no waste, and the sustainable growing model, a well-stocked fruit and vegetable display will be a key feature of the customer experience. 

Beyond local supply, the fruit and veg will be seasonally selected and purchased directly from Covent Garden or Southampton market. The packaging will me as minimal and eco-friendly as possible and a member of staff will always be available to assist in the purchasing decision. 

With education, low food miles, no waste, and the sustainable growing model, a well-stocked fruit and vegetable display will be a key feature of the customer experience.

Artisan produced ambient products

To compliment the large range of kitchen produced foods, we intend to provide a broad range of ancillary products made by small artisan producers. Not only do they complement and enhance the kitchens own produced products, they provide the facility for the customer to buy everything they need in the kitchen. From exceptional hollandaise to marvellous mustards we will look to provide a great offering of mainly
 

British produce.. 
The foodhall will have a close relationship with its suppliers. They would be invited to attend and showcase their products regularly by offering tastings on key retail days. Where appropriate they would also be called upon to do cooking demonstrations in the cookery school area.  
 
Packaging free
We will introduce gravity and scoop fill units in retail refill systems to create an eye- catching display of loose goods in-store, creating additional shopping theatre while reducing packaging and waste. Customers can help themselves to a range of seeds, nuts, cereals, rices, pulses and popping corn! We will offer paper bags to dispense in or customers are welcome to bring in their own containers. Customers take only the amount they need, plastic free with very little food waste. Reducing the use of plastic is very important to us.

Honeys

Jams

Chutneys

Pickles 

Relishes

Nut butters

Sauces

Mayonnaise

Mustards

Dressings

​

Cook in sauces      

Condiments

Vinegars

Oils

Barbeque sauces and others

Tinned foods – fish, veg, meat, pulses etc. 

Tea, coffee, hot chocolate

Snacks

Savoury biscuits

Sweet biscuits

Cook in sauces      

Condiments

Vinegars

Oils

Barbeque sauces and others

Tinned foods – fish, veg, meat, pulses etc. 

Tea, coffee, hot chocolate

Snacks

Savoury biscuits

Sweet biscuits

Ecommerce & technology

Ecommerce will not be an addon to the overall experience, it will be integrated as part of the retail journey. Omnichannel retail is not usually associated with traditional farmshop type retailing but is incredibly important in todays changed environment. Covid has already thrown normality out of the window, with ecommerce being predicted to have increased in traction  by 5 years on its previously predicted growth. 

​

The food hall will be built with a large distribution room for online orders. The interior will be created so as to make purchasing our produce while at home, as easy as it is while in the shop. You've just finished that amazing piece of difficult to find British cheese and you're hankering for another. The packaging will come with a QR code which you easily scan with your phone, linking back to the item on our website for easy reordering. Having gone to the page you also find a link to recipes using the cheese, a video biog on the cheese maker and a link to an invitation to sign up to a cookery course with that cheese maker.   

​

Retail is now experience, nothing more. Integrating technology, subtly, into your visit will be a key part of the dna of the experience. 

Food Hall tasting pods

We currently provide customers with a 'deli-plate' option in our restaurant, allowing the customer to go up to the delicatessen counter within the retail area and choose a platefull of lighter deli foods. This is extremely popular and we feel would work  well as a dining experience in it's own right, within the Food Hall. It would boost turnover and create a fresh, street market feel to the retail experience.  It would be a lighter lunch option for people who are looking for something less formal than the main restuarant. It would draw upon the following from the Food Hall to make a theatrical backdrop:

• Street Food Delicatessen Counter (kitchen produced foods such as oriental salads, barbequed meats etc)

• Traditional Delicatessen Counter- pork pies, cold meats, anti-pasti, charcuterie

• Patisserie & cake Bar- Choose to buy a slice, piece or if on a diet, a whole cake. 

• Wine- A Corkage paid for any wine purchased in the Winery area within the Food hall, allowing for a much larger selection and the driving of retail sales.

As the concept evolves there will be other areas of the food hall which will be integrated into the offering.