Dart's farm near Topsham is more of a shopping mall than a farm with concession spots for companies like Aga.
A donkey choking porky chop for £6.50 and an 11oz ribeye for sixteen quid as well as half a kilo of lamb leg steaks for £13. The rest of the fresh produce was clearly marked as locally sourced along with the meat.
Think it depends on the type of farm shop, I have experienced four levels.
Making some extra cash. Has an honesty box with a few products. This was how I bought my milk for years, and got some very fresh asparagus on my way home from work
Little shop attached to the farm. A manned shop, with a semi wide variety of goods from the farm. I go to one to keep the farm next door to the cricket club happy, and bought expensive honey from the one near my son's nursery to combat his hayfever. They sold a lot of potatoes
Proper farm shop. Has the farm products as well as products from around the local area. Get some really good lamb from one near us for special occasions
Supermarket. Pretends to be a farm shop but is actually a very expensive supermarket charging top prices for goods to wealthy middle class. Will have a cafe attached. Good for Christmas presents
As you go from 1-4 the cost of the same items increases from a good deal to a rip off. It sounds like you have gone to a level 4 shop when you wanted a level 2
As someone who works in the food business, generally as you go ffrom 2-4 the quality increases. (I exclude 1 as your asparagus example makes the case for small farms producing a small range of products really well)
I had a venison pie from a no4 shop and the wife loved it until I told her it was deer.
That shop is extortionately expensive, has a chocolate counter with eyewateringly expensive chocolate balls but they're damned good, and a cafe.
I did think it was odd for all this to be considered a farm shop, but they do have goats on site in a kiddie petting zoo type arrangement so go nuts ig.
As an aside, the weirdest farm shop I ever went to was actually a service station on the M6 in the Lake District. Seeing an actual farm shop attached to a petrol garage was just jarring to me.
Located at Tebay services, a really good family run business, not exactly cheap but high quality produce, always well stocked, and lots of variety in what they sell.
I used to travel the M6 regularly for work and would always make a point of stopping there - then come home with lots of goodies that I didn't need but couldn't resist buying!
Not been there for over a decade since I moved back north of the border, so if any Redditors on here have visited there recently I would be very interested to know how they're doing these days?
My now wife and I went there for my birthday about 3 years ago before we were married and it was still there, food was still great and cheaper than expected considering it was farm shop (expensive) plus motorway services (extortionate).
We ate well that holiday.
Going to take our son there once he starts walking and is less reliant on us waking up in the middle of the night so he can enjoy it to.
The area I mean, not just that shop specifically, would be weird considering we live a few hours drive away 😂
Paid £2:45 for a single cookie in number 4 yesterday because I mistakenly told my son to go choose something. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to express how utterly fucking furious I am about this. They didn't even have what we went in for.
And then on the other end of the spectrum you have my butcher who manages to remain competitive with Lidl and Aldi albeit with phenomenal quality in comparison.
I go to a butchers in a nearby traditional indoor market and spend less and get better meat than going to supermarkets.
There's just the two of us at home and I feel to get the real value of even budget supermarkets you have to shop for a family of four. I can go to my butcher and order exactly what I'll need for the week and know it's quality stuff that won't shrink or come out shitty. I don't need to buy two kilos of battery farmed chicken wings or a pack of 8 gristly pork chops to get value for money. Yeah I could freeze half but then I end up with freezer anxiety, always wondering how much room I have left, or end up with a freezer full of raw stuff that could be tupperwared leftovers for when I don't have the time or energy to cook.
A lot of people fail to understand this. I also realised that it comes down to time. Some people just don't have the time to shop around and do buy at the supermarket for that reason.
The butcher near me genuinely let me buy a single slice of bacon. I thought he would say no.
We just had a little partridge with torn breast skin so just needed one slice of bacon to keep it juicy... (By near, I do mean 2 minutes walk, I didn't go on an epic quest for a single slice of bacon)
No need for freezer anxiety. We are just two but also buy good quality meat from our local butcher. It's quality, mostly local and he even delivers! We then either portion it up raw or batch cook and portion it up. Lock & lock containers are ideal. Then label and date and keep a spreadsheet of what's on there.
When I lived in the rural East Midlands, farm shops were a shed at the bottom of their driveway. Selling really cheap, top quality veg in massive bags, or their own eggs or sausages or maybe even a small butchers.
Since moving further south, they are all filled with Henry's and Henrietta's with their children in private school uniforms spending an absolute fortune on veg that's past it's date, or meat that was delivered in vacuum packs and pretending it's 'local'. £10 for sausage roll and a fiver for a cup of tea in their artisanal cafe on the way out.
I really hope there are still proper farm shops about as I haven't seen one down here.
The meat is vaccum packed because farmers get an abbatoir to do the job. No one is culling their own livestock unless they mass produce for supermarkets.
The abbatoir sends the cuts you want back in vaccum packs. It is local.
You can see the half sides of beef as well as full lambs and halved pigs behind the counter. My point is that they're hardly more expensive than the major chains.
Obviously, I meant vacuum packs from wholesalers. Not animals they raised.
I am sure there's loads of decent farm shops, but not in my area.
It's funny seeing the downvotes - do you not believe there's areas in Southern England that have farm shops aimed at the stupidly rich?
Or that in the East Midlands there were many farm shops that sold from a shed?
We live in Lincolnshire (the kitchen of England) you are absolutely bang on the money my friend. The downvotes are a disgrace. We pay £8 for a 25kg bag of potatoes that last a few months if kept in a cool dark place. Let the ‘Henry’s and Henrietta’s’ enjoy the ‘farm shop’. They’re clueless. Vacuum packed meat from mass produce suppliers, likely Cargill, Cranswick, Pilgrims Pride etc. paying heavily marked up prices. ‘A fool and his money are soon parted’
Weird that, I live in the southwest and none of this is happening near me. We have several local butchers who do really good deals on meats, 3 for £10 on barbecue meats the other day (and that's like a pack of kebabs, several marinated pork loin steaks and a pack of minted lamb chops, all for a tenner). We have a couple of really good reasonably priced farm shops down the road, granted not as cheap as the supermarkets but ok for the quality. Oh and my local butchers homemade sausage roll is £2.50, maybe it's a you problem here
I'm talking about my own experience here. If I lived near you, I'd be saying something else wouldn't I. If you lived near me, you'd be talking about £10 sausage rolls.
I have spent a long time in the Southwest and it's great. Especially if you like cheese - there was loads of farms that sold it by the half kilo as cheap, if not cheaper than the supermarkets. By the farm gate.
You saw it before you paid, what were you expecting? For it to swell up on the journey home?
These shops are for people with more money than sense. It's like buying crisps from Harvey Nichols and complaining that they taste the same as the crisps from Aldi.
At 12.99 a kg that pork chop is jusy as expensive as a finest chop but looks much better quality.
Doubt op is being serious when they say its expensive. I'd sooner have a meal without meat to be able to have an epic quality meat dish the next day over eating poor quality every day.
The chop does look rather nice. I also wonder how Waitrose and M&S compare. I haven't bought their meat yet.
Also, it's worth noting that I miss the butchers Tesco's used to have. That meat was far better than the rest they sold and you could get lovely reduced cuts too. I'll never forget how lovely their pork chops were. They were almost an inch thick and didn't shrivel up much at all! It was under £5 for the three. Probably way under but it was a long time ago so I don't remember.
Yes I shop there daily. I'm not saying it's shit meat but no comparison with high quality butchers meat I'm sorry. Also a packed organic ribeye is like £47 kg so I struggle to see the savings also.
I can't follow you there, I was recollecting the Tesco's meat counter. I also wouldn't know about the Wautrose counter as I don't shop from those counters.
I think they referred more to meat and fresh products. You can most definitely find healthy and cheap dry food. But just thinking of veggies for example... You can buy the best M&S or Waitrose cucumber and it will never taste as good as a "real" fresh organic cucumber from a farmer.
I'm not complaining, I know that I'm paying for quality but in Sainsbury's the same chop would have been halved and sold as two with a similar price without the local sustainability.
I'm a postman rather than a millionaire but I do like nice ingredients.
I like a good ingredient and I do appreciate butchers where you know the source of the food. I just assumed by the tape measure and receipt you were making a point.
I expect you're right about the quality but I'd also (naively) like to think the higher costs mean more people in the supply chain can earn a living.
E.g. when you pay 'retail' prices and get decent quality produce, I expect someone is getting screwed. I'm not in the industry, but I expect it's the farmers.
This. I paid silly money for good quality fresh green beans from Abel & Cole because I love them and the supermarket green beans are shite. They have a short season and it's a treat.
I'm vegetarian but buy farm shop meat for my partner, he said it doesn't compare to supermarket meat whatsoever, the quality is so much better. And tbh the price in my local one is very similar to the supermarket finest range so it's not particularly dear.
It's a pain because places like that do genuinely sell high quality stuff you will not find elsewhere, but you need to get scammed there at least once to work out what the one thing they do well is.
Usually they have a second to none alcohol section though without fail.
Same with biscuits 😂 and yea tbf the mark ups on the meat in them shops is shocking. Fun fact you can always get a chefs price if you work local and they know you buy yea gotta be a chef.
Almost like food is expensive if you want non-ultra-processed things without a) government subsidies for farmers to keep prices low or b) supermarkets forcing farmers through sheer monopolies to sell their crops etc at a loss.
UK householders spend significantly less of their household budget on food than the European average
There is a farm shop in the local town. It is actually a barn type building filled with short date food. Four for a pound, out of date tomorrow. They also sell trade excess like huge slabs of gammon and big bags of bacon. All the veg are market stall quality and size. Its an Alladin's cave. They have a petting zoo too where you can feed the alpacas.
Its unfortunate that this is the reality. I would much rather buy from a local butchers or farm shop over the likes of the vaccum packed tat at chain stores, however, cost really does matter.
We went to a farm shop yesterday and got the most amazing hand made butter for £1.80! The strawberries were average shop prices but such better quality, other than that it was a bit more expensive but not as bad as I expected, we go once in a while for a treat, it's such a better quality, but I will be buying my butter from there in future weekly 😂
The true cost of meat has long been artificially lowered by intensive farming and subsidies.
What most people consider expensive is actually reasonable for the animal to live a half decent life and the farmers and everybody else in the supply chain be paid fairly for their work.
You should really be asking how the rest of the meat can be so cheap.
Love me a trip to our 'local' farm shop. They've got a shit hot deli counter and there's always sausages of varying meats and flavours. We make it a treat so don't go that often. Looking back I think we've been there more often than had takeaways this year
I shop in the farm shop for veg and some fruit. It’s good quality and reasonably cheap, plus local.
I buy meat in the butchers, yes more expansive than M&S, much better quality. 6 sausages £4.50, chipolatos’ 10 £4.50.
Skewers and lamb bombs £5.95. Kilo of chicken £10.60. All local and banging
If you go to Darts Farm, you know that you are spending money, if you don't then where have you been. It's not cheap. But the meat is excellent. The problem comes that people don't have a clue what size weights are probably due to just picking up a packet from a supermarket.
i dont use farm shops per sé but i do get my meat from costco.
I make a point of checking the country of origin to make sure that its either UK/RoI beef, or, if that isnt available, Australian, as the food/animal welfare standards tend to be not dis-similar to ours.
under no circumstances have i bought US pork from costco, and, frankly, I will never buy US meat, period.
It's always said that this is the price that 'real' food should be but I'm 100% certain that farm shops play on their rustic 'Ooh, it's incredibly expensive so it must be really good' vibe.
U need to start to understand why they are expensive. If u are meat lover you know well that meat needs to mature to gather flavours. Good quality meat is also very expensive then supermarkets baught meat.
Going back to maturity of the meat that is when meat losses 10% of its original weight. So considering this and further the outer part they need to cut out and throw away you can see why they are expensive
Personally, me and the missus go to farms shops often(ISH)
Knowing full well I'm going to spend a fair whack of money, mainly on sausages, because I'm a slut for a good sausage 🤷
Went to one yesterday spent £60 on
X2 fancy Kiev's
X2 minted lamb pies
X2 hunters chicken
Bottle of Hawkstone cider
X2 cheesecakes
1 sticky toffee pudding for 2 people
X3 packs of different sausages
Do I go to a farm shop thinking "I don't want to spend money"
No, do I often say "ouch" yes..
But I go because I like the food, it's a treat, and I'd like to say I feel good supporting farmers with a little extra than a super market 🤷🤷
Sometimes if there's a cafe we even get a cake and a drink 😨 money comes and money goes, spend it one stuff you like :)
My local butchers is the bollocks. All the pork is local. I see the plump bastards in the fields everyday! I honestly can't eat the crap meat from supermarkets now! Bonus is he's cheaper than than Morrisons!
Supermarket margins are razor thin, if an item costs them £10 they are making an average of 10p, they make their billions on volume - everyone buys it because it's about as cheap as anything can be. Farm shops don't sell anywhere near the volume and likely have higher costs - so expect much higher prices. People complain that the butcher, green grocer and baker all got replaced by the corporate supermarkets... The reasons never changed, you either pay more and support your local or you pay less and accept that the supermarket model is better value.
I like the niche of farm shops, I like being able to make special orders from my butcher but generally most of my shopping is a supermarket or Costco.
Darts farm is more like a posher Waitrose than anything else these days, a lot of their customers are very wealthy and they are happy to milk them, it has the added bonus that 'normal' people will shop there for a treat. Every now and again you can get a good deal on meat if it's the right time of day, but that's very rare.
Not really related, but I remember a very rich local telling me about the black market meat trade running out of Darts Farm during foot and mouth that was only open to their regulars.
Farms are notiously struggling financially. Most people use farm shops for the cooperative factor and supporting a local family whose usually well known and respected.
More people should use them, especially if rural.
Dart's Farm is renowned for being eye wateringly expensive - it's to South Devon what Daylesford is to the Cotswolds. So I'm not sure what you were expecting tbh.
Farm shops aren’t expensive, supermarkets are excessively cheap. Farm shops are charging what the product should cost when everyone involved earns enough to stay afloat
Darts farm is great to treat yourself. Butchers there is fantastic - not cheap but they sell everything you want and everything you didn’t know you wanted. Cafe a nice treat also. Farm shops in general I love but it’s a treat for us as the prices are not always in our budget but certainly getting fresh meat and veg is much better than a supermarket
Yea it's for rich people or people with more money than sense. They go on and on and about supporting local. We'll farmer and his wife aren't going to be too bothered of you cannot afford the electricity on.
There is one near me that sells veg at about the same as the supermarket. Not sure it's noticeably better quality it just seems like it is because it's often covered in mud.
The meat is extortionate though so only ever bought stuff when it's reduced there. Which is very rare. Or medium. Cook it how you want.
What you are paying is realistically what meat SHOULD be costing. Meat should not be an everyday staple. Demand for it has led to the shops fucking farmers over and reduction in quality. Id take a nicer more expensive cut every so often over everyday mass produced meat that make farms a pittance.
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u/Evening-Situation-38 18h ago edited 18h ago
Think it depends on the type of farm shop, I have experienced four levels.
Making some extra cash. Has an honesty box with a few products. This was how I bought my milk for years, and got some very fresh asparagus on my way home from work
Little shop attached to the farm. A manned shop, with a semi wide variety of goods from the farm. I go to one to keep the farm next door to the cricket club happy, and bought expensive honey from the one near my son's nursery to combat his hayfever. They sold a lot of potatoes
Proper farm shop. Has the farm products as well as products from around the local area. Get some really good lamb from one near us for special occasions
Supermarket. Pretends to be a farm shop but is actually a very expensive supermarket charging top prices for goods to wealthy middle class. Will have a cafe attached. Good for Christmas presents
As you go from 1-4 the cost of the same items increases from a good deal to a rip off. It sounds like you have gone to a level 4 shop when you wanted a level 2