Speciality Food January 2024

the farmer. “There’s a bit more work thanmeets the eye. To do it properly you’ve got to keep it clean, and presentation is important. If you set it up well it will generate a nice little profit and be a good addition to your main business.” His top hints? Get your glass and lighting right. “If people spot a shiny glass door at the front of the shop and can see the produce inside, nicely lit, that canmake a huge difference, we’ve found.” ‘Vendingmachines have enhanced our business’ When Dorset-basedMeggy Moo’s Dairy was looking to add value to its output, the Perrett family thought an honesty box could work well. Being based ‘off the beaten track’, they weren’t convinced it would amount to much. Could they really generate enough footfall? “Quite tentatively we just built a little cupboard on the side of one of the barns,” says Rachael Perrett. “I spoke to Jonny at Fen Farm, and he said to start small and see howwe got on before getting a machine.” They began bottling around 10lts of rawmilk a day. “We were quite amazed at howmany people were coming to the farm. Quite a few said they liked the idea of visiting us to buy milk, but they couldn’t drink unpasteurisedmilk, so I bought a tiny pasteuriser that would do 15lts 18 T here’s no doubt, in fine food retail, that it’s the personal touch that matters. However, not everyone in the food industry wants to be a shopkeeper. This is perhaps most applicable to farmers, who tend to want to get on with the actual business of farming rather thanmanning a till trying to sell a few bottles of milk or the odd pack of sausages. Then, though, there’s the issue of making money, and adding value. Farm shops have traditionally been the answer. While they’re often hugely successful, they are costly to build, and with their requirements for staffing and stocking, can became a bigger beast than some care to handle. Could the solution be as simple as introducing a vending machine or vending locker set-up? It’s a resounding ‘yes’ from Jonny Crickmore of Fen FarmDairy, who was one of the first farmers in the UK to install the technology, after noting the success of a neighbour selling eggs direct to customers from an honesty box on the side of the road in 2011. “I just thought it was so simple, straightforward and brilliant,” he says. “I thought to myself, ‘why don’t dairy farmers sell their milk like this?’” Selling rawmilk, at the time, was a niche opportunity. “When I talked to people locally they weren’t sure about it. They said, ‘it won’t work, your milk will taste no different to what’s already in the shops, and it’ll be more expensive’.” It was daunting. But he persevered, bottling up the farm’s rawmilk with a label - ‘Jonny’s Girls’. “We put it in a fridge with an honesty box in a garden shed, and that just took off!” The only downside was some customers weren’t so honest. Jonny overcame the problemby investing in one of Britain’s first milk vending machines. It was expensive. The milk, therefore, was sold at a premium. Would it put shoppers off? “No. They loved it. And they kept coming back for more.” There was so much interest in the vending concept that Jonny would go on to advise on and sell themachines. But he had a decision to make – did he want to be a vending salesman, or a producer? Thankfully, for the sake of Baron Bigod lovers everywhere, he chose the latter – but not before he’d sold around 50 machines, starting a bit of a revolution in the UK. A full vending machine-led farm shop shed soon appeared at the farm gate. But most recently Jonny has returned to the ‘honesty’ system, opening a high-tech, unmannedmini farm shop in a highly visible spot close to a busy main road. Jonny says the beauty of this kind of shop is they are cheap to set up, and give maximumflexibility to or so. We started to sell pasteurised but unhomogenisedmilk alongside the rawmilk, and that increased the footfall again.” Soon, the farm added semi- skimmedmilk and cream too. As it outgrew its ‘honesty cupboard’ (largely via word of mouth), Meggy Moo’s developed a proper shop, investing in five milk and food vending machines. Finding a machine that dispensed both whole and semi-skimmed milk was a challenge, but The Milk Station Company came to the rescue, providing the ideal solution for the shop. Today, customers can decant the milk of their choice into glass bottles, and also pick up the farm’s JESSICA SQUIRES UPPER DYSART LARDER COMMENTATORS JONNY CRICKMORE FEN FARM DAIRY Having a physical store presence isn’t feasible for everyone – and a new kind of retail is popping up across the UK in response IS VENDING THE FUTURE FORSMALL FARMSHOPS? cream and butter, locally produced cakes, jam, honey, ice creams, frozen meat, andmore. “We are 100% a vending shop,” says Rachael. “I was quite hesitant about vending machines to begin with. At the time, they remindedme of being at school. But, actually, the machines we use are far more sophisticated. It’s minimal maintenance for us.” Is there a downside? “Only the initial investment,” says Rachael. “There are lease options out there, but we’ve always bought ours. Another thing is they can break down, even though they are pretty reliable. But as farmers we’re quite good at getting around things.” For Rachael, the pros outweigh any @specialityfood