The Present Farm Shop 

What started as a barrow on the side of the road 45 years ago has slowly grown into something much more. In fact, the Farm Shop at Applegarth, with its team of 6 employees, has been selling locally sourced, artisan foods for over 25 years now. Having always favoured produce from local British suppliers, Applegarth continue to put money into the local economy instead of the corporate sector.

With 1,000+ products stocking the shops shelves, a wide range of artisan deli foods and ready meals made in the restaurant kitchen, Applegarth have been working hard to meet the needs of its community. However, the current infrastructure is limiting their productivity and significant improvements need to be made to the working conditions and retail space to support the growing demand. 

Applegarth currently produce:​

• Freshly Baked Bread – no mass produced frozen goods that are finished in a supermarket and past off as 'fresh'

• A range of Ready Meals – fresh & frozen to take home

• Homemade Puddings – fresh and frozen to take home

• Home-baked Cakes – to purchase from the shop. A range of birthday cakes/cupcakes/tray-bakes are also available to pre-order

• Deli Counter Goods – seasonal salads savoury pastries, pies, quiches & more

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

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• Blackburne & Hayes, Churt

• Goodwood Farm, Goodwood

• Tunworth Dairy, Alton

• Perfect Pickles, Petersfield

• Graham Marshal, Headley

• Monie McGeorge, Grayshott

• Belinda Clarke, Romsey

• Plum Perfection, E Grinstead

• My Chocolate Gallery, Romsey

• Hampshire Honey, Grayshott

• Cusacks, Tadworth

• Sussex Valley, Chichester

• The Garlic Valley, Isle of wight

• Horsham Gingerbread

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Apologies to the 45+ other producers who we have run out of space to fit here!

• Hog's Back Brewery, Guildford

• Suthwyk Ales, Farnham

• Mr Whiteheads Cider, Alton

• Andwell Brewing Co, Hook

• The Granary, Haslemere

• Montezuma's, 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 Future Food Hall

A step up from the traditional farm shop model, the Applegarth Food Hall will offer a unique selection of the finest local goods to the discerning & conscious consumer. A fusion of service & retail, using sustainable best practices, will allow visitors to experience the Applegarth offer within a stunning setting as well as in the comfort of home. 

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Combining the immediacy and vibrancy of street food production with old school and trusted purveyors of artisan food, this winning combination will deliver a vibrant market style retail environment. Created with a full foodservice mindset, the chefs and retailers that work here will add a big dose of theatre to the shopping experience by hosting regular demos that will immerse the customer in the food production journey. The Artisan School, also located within the Food Hall, will be central to the way foods are merchandised with workshops & classes running throughout the year.

An attractive market stall display directly in front of the impressive Food Hall exterior will offer a variety of local & homegrown fresh produce. Pass through the double doors and clear signage & food categorisation will direct retail shoppers  beyond with strong messaging that will weave the Applegarth story – ensuring visitors are given the chance to explore & understand the underlying values & ethos.
 

A Sensory Tour...

Lighting will play an extremely important role in enhancing the visual experience. From the general illumination, backlit signage & displays to spotlights & pendants, lighting will be used to draw customers in, create the right atmosphere & provide orientation.

Hearing is often the 'forgotten sense' when it comes to consuming – not at Applegarth. Getting the sound right will vastly add to the customers’ gastronomic appreciation and understanding. Music will be subtle and suit the mood & time of day. The happy hum of people going about their daily work and engaging with guests – delivering great customer service with a smile and offering their expert assistance. The sound of butter as it hits the hot iron and starts to sizzle, creating an appealing scent and sound that fills the Food Hall bring "oohs" and "ahs" from onlookers.

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Did you know? The human nose is able to detect more than 1 trillion scents. Closely tied to memory and wellbeing, the plethora of scents coming from the freshly harvested produce, Kitchen, Bakery, Deli-Counter, Cookery School and more will have a powerful impact on the overall consumer experience – leaving guests craving to return time and time again. 

Business Snapshot

Fresh From The Aeroponic Greenhouse & Market Garden

You know that feeling you get when you walk into a bustling French market and the fruit & veg is so ripe and fresh you can smell it? The Aeroponic Greenhouse will be key in bringing this to Applegarth as well as building on their existing links with very localised micro growers from whom they currently purchase. The growing towers will supply a substantial volume & variety of fresh heritage produce which will make Applegarth virtually unique in this aspect. Seasonal selections will also be purchased daily from Covent Garden or Southampton Market to compliment Applegarth's own produce. Packaging will be minimal and plastic free.

With education, low food miles, zero waste, plastic-free and a sustainable growing model, this well-stocked fruit and vegetable display will be central to the customer experience. 

Street Food Style Serve Over Deli Counter

There's something magical about seeing freshly made foods laid out in a market style and Applegarth want to incorporate that in the way they display they kitchen made foods. The delicatessen counter will showcase a wide range of foods, both serve over and open fronted and will allow people to eat a 'deli plate' in the more relaxed food service area part of the restaurant. Inspiration will be taken from icons such as Yotam Ottolenghi with plates of light, Mediterranean style salads and meats.

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The centrally located Deli, with its octagonal serve over station counter, will be a food-lover’s heaven – home to a carefully curated range of the finest local artisan and international produce. From heart-warming Pies and Quiches to Salads, Dips, Olives & Antipasti as well as succulent meats cooked by our very own chefs, there will be a whole host of gastronomic delights to savour.

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, ageing it further for them. 

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The 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 Food Hall & Artisan School by providing regular butchery demonstrations and lessons.

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The serve over counter, manned by a team of experienced Butchers, will be well stocked with 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. 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. Applegarth will dry-age their 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.

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All sausages and burgers will be made by hand by their skilled Butchery Team, who will manage everything from mincing and mixing to curing and cold-smoking. Sausages will be filled into natural casings and made using the same highest quality meat that is sold over the counter. 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 seeking convenience. 

Fresh Fish

Beyond the Butchery will be a Wet Fish Counter, traditionally laid out with the daily catch – fresh, sustainable, seasonal seafood. Applegarth has a portfolio of reputable suppliers that will deliver daily to the farm. Aside from the fish counter you will also find a great range of Smoked Salmon, Gravadlax and Fish Pâtés as well as Sauces & Marinades. Those looking for an extra treat, can expect Lobsters, Oysters & Whole Crabs as well as prepared seafood and dressed Salmon platters.

The conscious consumer is increasingly concerned about the sustainability of fishing, in terms of the species caught and the methods used to catch them. Applegarth are committed to supporting sustainable fishing techniques and their like-mined knowledgable team of employees will be committed to achieving the same goals.

Cheese Room

There are very few outlets locally that provide an amazing cheese offering and Applegarth plan 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 them to offer wonderful cheeses at their most delicious - aged to perfection and in prime condition.  

Try before you buy? Absolutely. Once you've made up your mind, Applegarth's team of experts will cut and wrap it in their special waxed paper to keep it at its best.  The Cheese room will specialise in selling artisan cheeses made on family farms in the British Isles. Applegarth 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.

The Sustainable Pantry

Created with sustainability in mind, this area of our Food Hall will make it easy for customers to make a difference. Applegarth will replace single-use packaging with refillable vessels, so shopping for kitchen staples can be lighter on the planet’s precious resources. Centred around a dry goods dispensary for staples such as cereals, nuts, seeds, grains and pulses, customers will be able to use their own containers from home or choose from a range of sustainable, reusable vessels, thus reducing the need for single-use plastic and unnecessary packaging when shopping for these loose-fill items.

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Beyond the dispensary, The Pantry will showcase a variety of artisan suppliers that are true artists, dedicating their lives to creating intriguing, personal, and delicious products from the ground up.

Applegarth Branded

Smoking, pickling, curing and fermenting – just a few of the processes Applegarth will introduce to the Food Hall Kitchen to season up their shelves and your plates. This will sit as an exciting extension alongside a range of Gourmet Ready Meals and Homemade Puddings, bearing their brand. Applegarth see potential for both a frozen and fresh range of Ready Meals that would be sold in a pre-pack form & produced in their own kitchens in front of the customer.  In addition to this, a range will be a range of Finish-At-Home Meal Kits – bringing the Applegarth dining out experience to the consumers home. Produced by the bees in hives located on our own Farm, we are proud to stock our very own Applegarth Honey too.

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.

Home-Baked Cakes & Sweet Treats

Everything Applegarth bake – freshly baked breads, homemade cakes, sweet pies, cookies, biscuits, fresh cream cakes, pastries, patisserie & more – will be made with a close eye on sustainability. All ingredients will be homegrown or locally sourced & their packaging recyclable. Applegarth will expand their seasonal offering of melt-in-the-mouth Award Winning Mince Pies, Christmas Puddings & Scones too, further strengthening their offer. Think ice creams served over the counter, seasonal fruit tarts and more. An online pre-order facility will also be available to drive special occasion cake sales.

Drink Artisan 

Applegarth have long been strong supporters of the English Wine & Spirits industry, championing vineyards & distillers that are local to them. In the new Food Hall, customers will have access to 100’s of such products, each with their own unique story to tell. Each product you’ll find here will crafted with the proper due diligence and consideration of the environments they come from. Applegarth assess that every artisan is accountable to high quality standards to ensure that there’s pure, guilt-free delight in every sip.

E-commerce & Technology

E-commerce will not be an add-on to the overall experience, it will be integrated as part of the retail journey. Omni-channel retail is not usually associated with traditional farm shop type retailing but is incredibly important in todays changed environment. Covid has already thrown normality out of the window, with e-commerce being predicted to have increased in traction  by 5 years on its previously predicted growth. 

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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 are 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.   

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Retail is all about the 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 plateful 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 restaurant. It would draw upon the following from the Food Hall to make a theatrical backdrop:

Committed to Artisan

Applegarth's local suppliers are some of the most exciting and inspiring artisan producers out there and give them access to some of the freshest local fish, amazing meats, award-winning cheeses and English wines in the country. Not only do they complement and enhance the Applegarth product range, they provide the facility for the customer to buy everything they need in the kitchen. 

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Committed to Building Lasting Relationships
The food hall will have a close relationship with its local suppliers. They would be invited to attend and showcase their products regularly, offering tastings on key retail days. Where appropriate they would also be called upon to do cooking demonstrations in the cookery school area.