Riverford Organic Farmers

We crashed The Last of Us Season 2 premiere last night. Announcing The First of Us - the UK’s first organic, peat-free mushrooms. Best bit? They don’t eat your brains.

It’s #nationalpetday and we know that no one loves their pets more than our Riverford gang! We’re always hearing tell of the organic broccoli stalks, trimmings and veg box treats that your pampered pets are munching on. Here’s an idea for some three ingredient, super simple homemade dog treats. Simply combine grated carrots, oats and peanut butter (make sure it doesn’t contain xylitol or added salts or sugar), shape into bites and bake. Does your pet live this kind of high life? 🐶 #Riverford #dogs #officedogs #treats

The Riverford Learning and Development team have been working behind the scenes to create an amazing welcome event for new Co-Owners joining Riverford. The Welcome Event is a way connecting with all of our new starters, sharing information, stories and updates that provide an overview of how Riverford operates, our vision and action plan and so much more. It's also an opportunity to connect with others, hear from visiting colleagues from a range of roles across the business. We can't wait to launch these and welcome new co-owners into the business. A massive shout out to Sophie D. (Learning and Development Advisor) and Julia Bickley (Learning & Development Manager) for all the amazing work that has gone into organising these events.   #Learninganddevelopent #Welcomeevent #riverford #coowners

🚀 We're Hiring – Join Our Team at Riverford! 🌱 We’re seeking a Multiskilled Maintenance Engineer. You will be joining a small team of technical experts reporting into the Engineering Manager as part of a larger Facilities Team. Day to day, you will be providing engineering support to our operations teams with proactive and reactive works. You will also play an essential role when we plan and implement new installations. Being a key stakeholder in the practical application of planned preventative maintenance you will contribute to updating and refining schedules and works. You will also be involved in our new exciting project of an in-house asset hierarchy, which looks to index all our equipment, spares and components, and their integration, enabling improvements and overall equipment effectiveness in production. To find out more and apply now: https://lnkd.in/e3AHTQrd #EngineeringJobs #Teamwork #MaintenanceEngineering #NowHiring #JoinOurTeam #Riverford #Werehiring

🎉 This week at Riverford, we’re proud to be hosting our very first Giving Back Week (7th–10th April) – a celebration of what we can achieve together as co-owners when we give back to our communities. From bake sales and raffles to quizzes and learning sessions, the week is packed with events designed to raise funds and awareness for good causes. All money raised will be donated to one of our main charity partners – chosen by our co-owners. We kicked things off on Monday with a delicious bake sale, with cakes generously made and donated by our talented co-owners. Thanks to everyone's sweet tooth and generosity, we raised £151.50 – and with Riverford’s match, that’s a total of £314.25 heading to Chefs in Schools 🍰👏 Here’s to more fun (and fundraising) this week! #GivingBack #CoOwners #Riverford #CharityWeek #ChefsInSchools

🎉 This week at Riverford, we’re proud to be hosting our very first Giving Back Week (7th–10th April) – a celebration of what we can achieve together as co-owners when we give back to our communities. From bake sales and raffles to quizzes and learning sessions, the week is packed with events designed to raise funds and awareness for good causes. All money raised will be donated to one of our main charity partners – chosen by our co-owners. We kicked things off on Monday with a delicious bake sale, with cakes generously made and donated by our talented co-owners. Thanks to everyone's sweet tooth and generosity, we raised £151.50 – and with Riverford’s match, that’s a total of £314.25 heading to Chefs in Schools 🍰👏 Here’s to more fun (and fundraising) this week! #GivingBack #CoOwners #Riverford #CharityWeek #ChefsInSchools

News from the farm: If every spring was like this... ...farming would be easy. Potatoes, lettuces, cabbages, and broad beans are all being planted in perfect conditions, into fine and warming seedbeds. The cows are enjoying an early turnout onto fresh spring grass, after a winter in warm barns, monotonously chomping their way through ten tonnes of sileage (pickled grass, like sauerkraut for cows). Even the more elderly manage the occasional buck and double rear kick in celebration, before settling down to graze. Some grass and veg crops are looking a bit ‘pinched’. With longer days and rising temperatures, they want to grow – but the emerging leaves are small and pale, suggesting that they are hungry for nitrogen. Ideally the cool and dry east winds that we have enjoyed for the past month will soon swing to the west, bringing some warm, damp weather with them. This would help soil microbes to recycle the manure and compost we have spread – releasing soluble nutrients that plants’ roots can absorb, to boost their growth and swell their leaves. Our two new varieties of purple sprouting broccoli are producing the best quality and highest yields we have seen for several years. This is the final flush of this true seasonal star. Order some while you can; in a couple of weeks, the crop will finish for the year. After a difficult winter, cauliflowers are also flourishing, with heavy, solid heads. They should be available until the end of April. Similarly, leeks are making their last push before running to seed. We try to harvest them before they send up their triffid-like flowering heads, borne on tough, telescoping central stalks – but if you halve yours lengthways (which helps with washing anyway) and find a stalk of more than about 10cm, remove and discard it. Our experienced and hardy team of foragers have been picking wild garlic for the last month. With careful management, the impact on the garlic plants and the wood ecology is minimal – making wild garlic the most sustainable food we sell, and providing an income to help us manage the ancient, broad-leaved woodland where it thrives. It will be in some veg boxes, and available to add as an extra item, for another two or three weeks. Grab it while it lasts, before the emerging leaves in the tree canopy above shade it out. Wild garlic is wonderful in omelettes or light spring risottos, or can be made into a fragrant pesto to enliven pasta, sandwiches, and soups. https://lnkd.in/eDVvc8ez #Guysnews #Riverford #farmupdate

News from the farm: betrayal at the finish line Britain’s farmers have been led on a ten-year journey, from being proud and respected food producers, to reinventing themselves as environmental custodians. Farming relies on long-term decisions, and this has been no different – requiring years of planning and careful implementation, for the promise of long-term benefits. But earlier this month, when many farmers finally had plans in place, the door was slammed in their faces with the government’s sudden removal of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI): the main financial support for the change. Since WW2, when Britain was so nearly starved into submission, our farmers have been subsidised; initially through price guarantees, then through the Single Payment and Basic Payment Schemes, paid per acre. The first produced food mountains and annoyed our trading partners with the dumping of surpluses; the second delivered little for taxpayers or the environment. It is hard to argue with Michael Gove’s 2018 suggestion that “public funds” paid to farmers should be dependent on the delivery of “public goods”. The difficulty was always going to be finding a universal, meaningful measure of “public goods” for the distribution of those funds. How do you value an oak tree, relative to an earthworm, an endangered bird, a kilogram of sequestered CO2 or a clean river? Our complex, diverse ecosystems defy the over-simplification of a single monetary metric. Even so, farmers have invested countless hours and thousands of pounds into developing plans for managing their farms under the SFI. Where to plant trees, which hedges to restore, which soil conservation measures to adopt… Most people needed to employ consultants to help them navigate all this, who will still need to be paid. Every hour spent attending briefing meetings, assessing options, and preparing funding applications is an hour not spent farming. Every pound spent on consultants is a pound not invested in our farms. And after this colossal waste of time and money, there is a palpable sense of betrayal. How can any farmer make good decisions when the government’s approach is so unreliable? The government must offer financial and legislative stability to farmers. The productive, ecological farming that Britain so urgently needs will require long-term investments, which farmers can only make when they feel stable and confident – the very opposite of what they are experiencing right now https://lnkd.in/eks-TvWe #Riverford #guysnews #sustainablefarmingincentive

It was #FoodWasteWeek last week and here’s how we fight food waste on the farm. We love a bit of wonkiness - we grow for flavour and quality, not cosmetic perfection. But when we have fruit and veg that doesn’t make the grade to go out to customers (often if it’s a bit too ripe or we have a glut), we always make the most of it. Some of this ‘graded out’ fruit and veg gets crafted into delicious organic meals in our co-owner canteen and our restaurant, the @riverfordfieldkitchen (like these blueberries). Our local partner @foodincommunity - a not-for-profit community interest company - collects organic fruit and veg from the farm and distributes it to where it’s most needed. And co-owners can also take home fresh fruit and veg for free - we eat well, and nothing goes to waste! 

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