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Ullacombe Farm Shop & Barn Cafe - From Shop To Success! A potted, Lidded History!

Mon 6 Sep 2010



By Hilary Pilkington. 

If someone had said to me 10 years ago that I would be moving to the Midlands I would never have believed them!

Mark & I bought Ullacombe Farm in 1989 had a small dairy herd & free range laying hens, started to sell our eggs from the porch & somewhere in amongst all that produced two lovely children!
My egg customers kept saying "What else have you got for sale?" So a small Farmshop evolved with me making marmalade, jam & anything else that would sell & my mum & sister helping by making sponges for me.

The opportunity came to buy a small cake business & Mark offered to turn his beloved workshop into a kitchen, then I employed my first member of staff, Jenny & together we worked at increasing my business. 

Daughter, Heather eventually became my Saturday girl, my nieces worked part time & Ullacombe grew from an honesty box system into the Farmshop it is today with home baking, just like your mum used to make, still a huge part of our ethos.
We have since added a café to enhance the shopping experience & are always striving to improve our service.

Meanwhile back to the farming side of the business! Our son Matthew was showing signs of becoming a farmer. With modern day farming being very much a numbers game we realised we had to get bigger to support two families in the future, so we started looking for a bigger farm to rent in the West Country. Eventually we had to look further afield & in October 2006 took over a 560 acre Organic Crown Estate Farm in Rugby, Warwickshire, the fulfilment of Marks dream! No hills or stones! Our Ullacombe dairy herd went up in the spring 2007 & the rest is history! We now milk 350 cows selling our milk to OMSCO, an organic Cooperative based in Somerset.
I have to admit I was in a bit of turmoil; my Daughter taking her A Levels had her life in Devon & my husband & son were in the Midlands!
Well by September 2007 I had to move & this is where my family & loyal employees came into their own. They all said they would cope without me! Don't really know what to make of that!

Well, the business has gone from strength to strength. Home cooking is still carrying on; the family & staff are ever supportive & doing a great job, what more could I ask. I think not having your nose to the grindstone all the time enables you to see things more clearly & as they say "outside of the box!"

I continue to commute up and down, it's a 3 hour 200 mile trip so if you see me looking slightly jaded one day you know what I have been up to!!



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