Daylesford Organic Farm, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaylesfordFarm
About
We farm responsibly, mindfully, with intelligence and with a conscience. We hold ourselves accountable for our ethical and environmental standards and welcome the opportunity to show you what we do.
Raising our animals and handling our ingredients with the greatest care and consideration, in a way that respects our environment, are the core values on which our farm is founded.
At Daylesford our animals roam freely on our farm’s organic pastures, and are mostly fed on organic crops we grow ourselves. We rotate our fields between crops and our animals, which allows the soil to build up nutrients naturally. All this means we are farming sustainably, and soon we hope, completely self-sufficiently.
All our animals are raised to Soil Association Organic Standards – all of which we exceed.
Our meat
OUR LAMB
We have five breeds of sheep roaming the organic pastures at Daylesford including shaggy rare breed Cotswolds and Kerry Hills with their distinctive face markings. The various cycles of these breeds ensures that our butchers have organic lamb all year round.
Our lamb achieved a 2 Star Gold in the Great Taste Awards 2012
OUR ABERDEEN ANGUS BEEF
Our beef predominantly comes from our pedigree herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle, a breed that is famed for its superior quality beef. Ours tastes great as it grazes on our organic pastures and is hung in our abattoir to mature for 21 days; many supermarkets only require their beef to be hung for 7-10 days.
Our beef achieved a 2 Star Gold Award in the Great Taste Awards 2011 and won numerous titles at county shows.
OUR GLOUCESTER BEEF
We have a passion for preserving heritage breeds and rescued a herd of Gloucester cattle which was virtually extinct. This is a dual purpose animal which produces both a full flavoured beef and a milk which we use to make our award-winning Gloucester cheeses. Their meat is full of flavour and the cheaper cuts are perfect for slow-cooked beef casseroles, curries and chilli.
OUR VENISON
Our outstanding herd of farmed venison is very rare indeed, it is one of a handful of herds to be certified organic by the Soil Association and is the largest herd in the country. They live a virtually wild existence, with minimal human contact. Our venison is at its best from September to February, and has won awards for its quality and taste.
OUR CHICKENS
Our chickens live significantly longer lives than even free-range chickens. As they forage, they make the most of our organic pastures, being an animal that naturally enjoys exploring. This all means their meat has time to develop its unique flavour.
Our Daylesford Blue Legbar hens are a rare Gloucestershire breed that produces our award-winning blue eggs with yolks of a rich yellow colour and high in omega 3.
Our Legbar eggs achieved a 2 Star Gold at the Great Taste Awards 2011.
OUR TURKEYS & GEESE
We raise our traditional bronze turkeys and white geese on our own farm. Our turkeys have a natural ability to roam around outdoors; ours are free to forage as they wish. We finish them on our own organic oats to give them their distinctive, exceptional flavour with a moist texture.
OUR PORK, BACON & SAUSAGES
As we don’t raise our own pigs at Daylesford, we work with two organic pig farmers we know and trust just 20 miles from our Gloucestershire farm. They keep happy pigs who spend their entire lives out in open pastures with straw beds.
Videos
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Boris and Carrie’s £12,500 secret pandemic food deliveries: PM and fiancee have dined in style on gourmet takeaways smuggled in from Britain’s poshest farm shop owned by Tory donor
Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds have dined in style during the pandemic – thanks to a secret £12,500 gourmet food supply provided by a business owned by the family of a billionaire Tory donor.
They have had around 30 giant boxes of shopping and up to 100 prepared meals from a luxury organic food store ‘smuggled in’ to Downing Street via the rear entrance.
The deliveries are from the Daylesford organic farm shop company, owned by Lady Bamford, wife of JCB construction tycoon Lord Bamford, whose family has given millions to the Conservative Party.
According to the Commons Register of Interests, Lord Bamford and his JCB firm bankrolled Mr Johnson to the tune of £160,000 in 2019.
A heaving box of weekly shopping from Daylesford – one of the most expensive food stores in Britain, and which is favoured by celebrities including Hugh Grant – is delivered to Downing Street on Tuesdays with a bouquet of flowers.
In addition, pre-prepared meals are dropped off at lunchtime on weekdays by the same delivery man, prepared by Mr Johnson’s Daylesford ‘personal chef’.
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Fermentary
Articles
Carole Gray Bamford, Lady Bamford, OBE (born 1946), is a British business woman who founded the Daylesford Organic Farmshops chain and the Bamford brand of women’s products. Lady Bamford is married to the billionaire industrialist Sir Anthony Bamford, and is a director of his family’s JCB construction company. They live on a 1500-acre estate near Chipping Norton in the Cotswolds. She married Bamford in 1974. They have one daughter and two sons and four grandchildren. In 2006, Lady Bamford was awarded an OBE for her services to children and families.
(source: https://peoplepill.com/people/carole-bamford)
https://www.agricology.co.uk/about-us/carole-bamford
I grew up in the countryside surrounded by farming, and this is how we chose to bring up our own children on the family farm. It is now almost 40 years since we began farming to organic principles, first in Staffordshire and later on at Daylesford in Gloucestershire. It was a consequence of wanting to feed my children good food that I could trust. It also made sense to care for the land and environment around us.
We now have four farmshops and cafés in Gloucestershire and London, which sell organic produce from the farm, including bread from our bakery, cheese from the creamery and meat from our abattoir in Staffordshire.
In 2007 we founded the Daylesford Foundation as a way of supporting projects in the UK that educate children and young people about sustainable food, growing and the countryside. It enables people to learn, to enjoy and to connect with the principles and practices of feeding ourselves organically and sustainably. We are very proud of the projects and organisations that the Foundation has supported through the years and none more so than Agricology.
In conversation with Carole Bamford
27.02.2020 Upon receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award at the inaugural Positive Luxury Awards 2020, the sustainability pioneer and founder of Daylesford Organic Farm shops sits down with photographer and founder of WWS Digital, Misan Harriman
Misan Harriman: Congratulations Carole. This is one of many awards and achievements but what is the crowning achievement of your life so far?
Carole Bamford: My goodness that’s a big one! I think my children, because they inspire me every day and so do my grandchildren. They are really the reason I’m here tonight. Forty-two years ago, I became organic because my daughter was in a pram and Anthony [Lord Bamord] was on the farm… I was growing roses and I saw that they had wilted and I thought, ‘What’s happening?’ I realised they were spraying a herbicide on a nearby farm and the toxins had affected the rose bushes. I later went to an agricultural show and sat in an organic tent for two hours and when I came away, I said to Anthony: ‘We need to change our way of farming.’ Everyone thought I was potty and that the farm was going to go downhill but I said: ‘We’ve just got to do it.’ It was just intuitive to me. I just felt it.
MH: I think that’s an important point. You’re saying that, number one this was born from love for your daughter, and wanting her to eat healthy things?
CB: She didn’t understand at the time but I just wanted her to breathe fresh air and I thought if these roses aren’t growing, if these vegetables aren’t growing… It’s really about the soil; the health of the soil. Whether we’re talking about fashion or food, it’s the full cycle. What we grow and how we grow it is who we become – we are what we eat. Same with our clothes. Where do they go? They go into the soil. The soil is all we have.
MH: What do you draw on when things get hard?
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