Tamar Grow Local have seen a huge uplift in Food Hub usage and as the Coronavirus pandemic took hold, people turned to the Food Hub for supply of local produce as it became increasingly difficult to shop via supermarkets.  With the supply chain for the Food Hub showing great resilience, due to sourcing from mainly smaller, local producers within the Tamar Valley, the service has provided extremely popular at this critical time.

To help cope with the extra capacity, especially in regard to deliveries, additional volunteers have come from an unlikely source, the Plymouth Raiders Basketball Club, who’s staff and players have been helping with delivery runs as much as three times a week. Customers, local councils and Tamar Grow Local’s Board of Directors have also stepped in to help with deliveries on Friday afternoons.

It was via the partnership with Plymouth Raider’s that Studiovine, who are the team’s Official Brand Partner, stepped forward and offered to develop a new website as a way of supporting during this challenging time.

Tamar Grow Local Director, Richard Mollard said, “We’re incredibly grateful to Lee Nathan and his team at Studiovine for their support at this time.”

“Everyone at Tamar Grow Local, employees and volunteers have gone above and beyond to ensure we meet the growing demand, and more importantly, ensure we continue to provide food deliveries to those being forced to self-isolate and who need additional support with supplies.

“Our website has needed a revamp for some time, so when Lee offered to help in that regard, we were incredibly grateful, and now we have a site that truly represents the brilliant work we carry out.”

Studiovine Managing Director, Lee Nathan added, “We have a close working relationship with everyone at the Plymouth Raiders, so when Richard approached us for our support we were only too happy to support them. We are currently living in uncertain times so anything we can do to support others business then we will.”

To find out more about Studiovine and their services, visit their website https://studiovine.co.uk/.

Tamar Valley Food Hubs deliver a wide range of local produce across the Tamar Valley and in Plymouth on Friday afternoons. To order, please visit www.tamarvalleyfoodhubs.org.uk

Tamar Grow Local is a Community Interest Company, founded with the aim of supporting local growers, farmers and producers in various ways, one of which is via their home delivery service, the Tamar Valley Food Hub.  Ordered are placed between Friday and Wednesday morning each week, and deliveries are made to either collection points or your own front door on a Friday afternoon.

There has never been a more important time to help our local producers and ensure that deliveries are still getting to their destinations, and with more and more people having to now self-isolate, the service provided by Tamar Grow Local has never been more important.

This week Raiders’ Director Richard Mollard was joined by Raiders’ BBL player, Will Neighbour to handle deliveries in and around the Bere Peninsular, and General Manager Heather Nash and Community Coach, Ben Fox looked after the delivery route in and around Plymouth, assisted by Courier Force who have kindly provided a van for use free of charge during this crisis.  

Mollard, who also sits on the board of Tamar Grow Local, said, “During these immensely challenging, unprecedented times it’s so importantly that we all do what we can to help each other.  We need to keep our spirits up, try and stay positive, and the best way we can do this is to show generosity and compassion where possible.

“Obviously this is also an incredibly difficult time for the Raiders, who like a lot of business, are going to have to tighten belts considerably, but we’re committed to riding the storm and keeping our off-court staff employed, and while the workload has dropped we’re going to commit our resources to help our community in any way we can.

“As a Director of TGL, it was an obvious place to start, and as long as we’re allowed we’ll continue to support TGL in ensuring that produces is still getting to its destination, and we’ll be volunteering our time and resources anywhere else we can to try and help us all get through this difficult time.

“I also want to sing the praises of all the incredible NHS workers, and health carers in general, and urge all our fans and the public in general to take this very serious so as not to unnecessarily overburden the service.  Adhere to the advice being given by the Government, ensure you wash your hands and practice social distancing, and all being well we will overcome this together.”

Rachael Forster from Tamar Grow Local added, “As a Community Interest Company we’ve been committed to supporting our community for over a decade, but never did we think our Food Hub would become such a vital lifeline for many at such a troubling time.

“This has been a record breaking week in terms of our orders, as you might imagine, and we need more and more help to keep on top of supply and delivery, so we are incredibly grateful for the Raiders and Courier Force who have stepped in to assist, it means a lot to us and our customers.

“We will continue to operate as usual for as long as we’re able, and although stocks may become limited at times, we’re always grateful for new customers. Even when not in times of crisis our retail supply service via the Hub provides a vital revenue stream to all our suppliers, who set their own prices and receive 85% of the retail price of their goods.”

“Rest assured that we have put new processes in place to ensure our end to end service is as safe as it can be, and we’ll be doing contactless deliveries to ensure we still keep to social distancing recommendations.”

The Hub is operating as business as usual between Friday mornings and Wednesday morning, and orders can be placed at www.tamarvalleyfoodhubs.org.uk  

Tamar Valley Food hub stocks an incredible range of local, organic and ethical products, from seasonal fruit and vegetables, and meat straight from local farms, as well as a large array of household and store cupboard goods.

You can also donate via the Hub to the ‘Pay it Forward’ scheme, which will see vegetables being supplied to families in need via Plymouth’s Grow Share Cook project and local soup kitchens.

Volunteers also had the opportunity to visit Weir Quay Gardens and Andrew Spry’s vast collection of daffodils and learnt how to use the mobile app in a ‘real’ outdoor environment. Heralds of Spring activities extended after the valley’s daffodils had finished blooming with bulb plantings with pupils at Harrowbarrow and St. Dominic schools and with a bulb market held at Cotehele in October.

Plans are underway for the 2020 Heralds of Spring project. To get involved and keep up to date with news and events , please contact [email protected]

Stephen Keighley, one of Tamar Grow Local’s farm-start tenants at Mill Lane Acres in Metherell will be starring in the new series Devon and Cornwall produced by True North TV and being shown on More 4 this month.

Stephen caught the eye of the production company as he was new to market gardening, a big lifestyle change from a previous career in Estate Agency in London. He joins 3 other tenants at Mill Lane Acres who are all establishing their own growing businesses including a vineyard, orchard and another market garden.

Stephen who is from Launceston started up ‘Brockley Farm’ his half-acre plot in in Metherell in 2018. In his first summer at Mill Lane, Stephen harvested a wide variety of fresh vegetables and salads which were sold at a market stall in Launceston and also at Tamar Valley Food Hubs. After his first summer Stephen was looking to expand his acreage in the valley site and the range of naturally grown produce to sell locally.

Stephen said of his first year at Mill Lane Acres: “Year 1 was a real eye opener but a hugely enjoyable one following a lifelong dream. Having started with a bare field the work involved in creating new beds, adding nutrition, sowing, planting, weeding, harvesting and packing, was far more than I had ever expected. Keeping the pests and weeds at bay was also a daily challenge. And what a summer to start the business in – the longest drought for many a year. I’ve never wanted rain so badly in my life! But I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every long day there & learnt so much about working with nature which will stand me in good stead for the season ahead.”

And of starring in the new series Devon and Cornwall, “I was totally shocked to get a call to say they wanted to film me at work through the summer. Although I’m personally very proud of my achievements, I never expected a television production company to be interested in my story. The filming took place between June & October and was thoroughly enjoyable.  Everyone at True North was an absolute pleasure to work with & we all had a laugh filming.”

Kick-starting a vegetable growing business can have a number of obstacles including access to land and routes to market. Tamar Grow Local are helping to encourage people into market gardening with low cost land, easy in / out tenancies and help with sales of produce and distribution through Tamar Valley Food Hubs, an online farmers market which is not-for-profit to ensure that producers get fair prices for everything they sell through the site.

Simon Platten from Tamar Grow Local said: “Access to small parcels of land can be very difficult, especially for those from non-farming families or for those who do not have the resources to lease larger areas of land on a long-term basis. Our farm-start plots are a great way to move from recreational growing into experimenting with larger scale and commercial production with help, support and routes to market along the way.”

Andrew Sheldon, Executive Producer for the Devon and Cornwall series said: “Stephen and Tamar Grow Local introduced us to a profession the area is historically famous for, being approached in a thoughtful and modern way. The whole team were struck by the amazing weather in the South West generally, but in Stephen’s case this also added a little drama for us as last year’s heat wave threatened to bake his market garden. Stephen’s story is a perfect demonstration of how rewarding, but also how precarious it can be making a living off the land. Stephen and Tamar Grow Local – like so many we met over a long summer’s filming – welcomed us in and taught us much about the West Country way of life”.  

Devon and Cornwall is on Monday nights on More 4 at 9pm with Stephen’s episode being broadcast on Monday 29^th April. Brockley Farm produce will be available over the summer at www.tamarvalleyfoodhubs.org.uk and further farm start plots are available at Mill Lane Acres. For further information visit www.tamargrowlocal.org 

The community-interest-company (CIC) which celebrated its 10-year anniversary in 2017 has been creating a unique and resilient food system combining community projects and small commercial enterprises including a honey and apple co-op, online farmer’s market, farmstart, orchard and development of a local produce frozen ready-meal. All the projects are based around selling and promoting local Tamar Valley produce and supporting a local, fair-trade system for growers and farmers as well as making produce from small-scale growers more readily available for consumers.

Simon Platten from Tamar Grow Local said: ‘Our model is based on a systems-theory approach and works with community food projects, small food growers and farmers to increase their resilience to external factors such as price fluctuations and climate change by building opportunities for economies of scale and novel markets for more fresh local produce. In turn, we have created a mutually supportive network where groups of projects such as farmers markets, allotments, orchards, food hubs, farms starts and other food enterprises can support each other to make their organisations more resilient. We’re delighted after 10 years to now be able to share our model with other groups around the country and help them provide similar services.’

Tom Carman from Cultivate Oxford, one of the first groups to receive support from Tamar Grow Local said: “Cultivate couldn’t be more pleased to work with Tamar Grow Local – the experience, skills and knowledge that the TGL team has are outstanding, and we feel extremely privileged to be able to learn from the best.  Cultivate has been working to introduce and grow a more localised food system to the Oxfordshire area because of all the known benefits a more localised food system brings – from food based-livelihoods, improvement to the environment, and its ability to bring people together.  We’re sure that this support will enable this to happen more meaningfully in Oxfordshire, and excited that these benefits could be seen in other parts of the UK too.”

Tamar Grow Local will now be meeting with other groups in the UK, supporting them to create a sustainable food system in their areas whilst working with small growers and farmers.