News and Features

Fancy running a farm shop?

Picture the scene - it's a beautiful sunny morning and I'm making my way up onto the Mendip Hills, windows down, taking in the scenery, thinking to myself how lucky I am to be out of the rat race and living and working in such a beautiful part of the country. I'm on my way to Priddy Good Farm Shop for a nice little chat about the ins and outs of running a farm shop.

I'm welcomed into a traditional farmhouse kitchen, with a homely wooden table and wonderful baking smells coming from the Rayburn. But the woman sitting opposite me by no means fits the storybook image of a farmer's wife. Jo Simmons, with a figure and looks not unlike Nicole Kidman, juggles her 5-month-old baby on her hip as she makes me a cup of tea and tends to a ham boiling on the stove. She apologises for looking tired (which she doesn't) explaining that the whole family had been up until late literally making hay while the sun shined.

She tells me how the Simmons family have farmed in Priddy for over 300 years and how she moved into Townsend Farm in 1999 after a whirlwind romance and very soon realised that a Farm Shop would compliment the commercial farming business. Her plans got put on hold with the birth of Emily, and then Grace and then Olivia, but in 2005, as if looking after two toddlers and a baby as well as a herd of 400 cattle wasn't enough, she decided to open the shop.

The Simmons set up a small cutting room and sent flyers around the village offering packs of beef. Word and reputation spread and a loyal customer base soon grew. The business and the family continued to grow and two years later with new baby Evie as well as the older three, Jo sells lamb as well as beef and has a reciprocal arrangement with pork farmers Chris and Bridget White of Cleeve. She also finds the time to make burgers, sausages and cakes and has roped in her father Tony Kovalev as pastry maker extraordinaire producing the now famous Priddy Good Pies, sausage rolls and pasties. But even now she's not resting on her laurels! Plans for the future include expanding the catering side of the business, specialising in pig roasts and barbecues, and adding a seating area for cakes and teas.

I'm keen to hear what is the key to Jo's success and begin to ask her when the phone rings. It's a local pub, "We've had a rush on and wonder what you can do for us this lunchtime?" Despite the fact that it's already gone 10, Jo says they can have some of the ham she's cooking and that she'll drop it over herself.

She's barely put the phone down before it rings again, this time it's a publican that's looking for inspiration. Jo chats to him as if she has all the time in the world, discussing options and agreeing on a new Spicy Beef Sausage that she'll do for him by this evening, at the same time setting the children up with craft materials for making butterflies.

As we continue in this vein I the answer to my question becomes clear, Priddy Good Farm Shop know all their customers personally and offer a flexible individual service. Jo's expertise and enthusiasm as a cook are invaluable and combined with Will's farming experience make for a winning team.

And being Superwoman who "just loves to cook" helps too!

Priddy Good Farm Shop