Wiltshire Marque Attends the Wiltshire Food & Farming Summit

We were invited to the recent Wiltshire Food & Farming Summit, aimed at tackling some of the issues that local food and drink producers face.

The Wiltshire Food & Farming Summit took place at the beautiful Carvers Hill Estate, a winery in Shalbourne, and was chaired by Danny Kruger, MP for East Wiltshire. 

The event took the form of a panel discussion with Dame Prue Leith, Helen Browning OBE (and Marque member!), Patrick Holden and Rich Osborn. Members of the audience were invited to give their thoughts on what it would take to create a high-functioning, locally rooted food economy in Wiltshire. 

Topics ranged from national policy on food systems and issues with local infrastructure, to how we can change public procurement and better educate children in the value of homegrown ingredients and nutrient-dense food. 

Several Marque members were in attendance and gave their views, including Andy Rumming from Andy Rumming’s Beef, Ellie Grant from The Magnificent Seed, Ceri Cryer from Brinkworth Dairy and Stephen Auty from White Horse Honey. Grove Farm Stitchcombe provided hot dogs for refreshments as well.

There was plenty of ‘food for thought’, although members of the audience noted that the necessary tools for change could require a lot of groundwork and that issues such as education and soil health could well take a generation before any major impact is seen. 

How can the Wiltshire Marque help?

One item, touched on very briefly, was the issue of marketing. Businesses are often so busy trying to get the day-to-day work done that they haven’t got time for extra promotion, and actually aren’t sure what marketing and promotion they need to do. 

The Wiltshire Marque is here to help on that front, whether that’s through free workshops, mentoring, or just spreading the word on social media! So if your food or drink business could do with some additional support, be sure to submit your application – membership is free!

What challenges are our members facing?

With only a limited time for discussion and a lot of topics to cover at the summit, we decided to build on that momentum by asking our members what their biggest business challenges are. Some of these included:

“Customers aren’t able to see the value/benefits of local food and often assume it's more expensive compared to supermarkets – sometimes it is, but there's a reason for it!” 

“Help is often only given to the larger businesses.”

What’s next?

Several ideas and suggestions that came out of the discussion included:

• Developing a Wiltshire Food and Farming Framework to coordinate local efforts; 
• Establishing civic kitchens and regional food hubs;
• Piloting dynamic procurement systems for schools and hospitals;
• Supporting small-scale infrastructure such as abattoirs, mills, and local processors;
• Investing in education and food literacy from early years onwards;
• Encouraging collaborative farmer networks to strengthen local supply chains;
• Using technology and data to track and communicate environmental and social impact.

In the meantime, we’ll keep championing brilliant Wiltshire producers and businesses – view our full list of members here. 

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