Vet Charlotte Coventry heads up the livestock side of family business Foxburrow Farm Ltd. Originally purchased as an arable farm by her father, the Foxburrow herd of Red Poll (a breed native to East Anglia) began when he was offered grazing rights on local marshland. Fast-forward to today and Charlotte, together with her team, now rear Red Poll beef and sheep for meat boxes sold online.
“We became AF Members in 2003, a couple of years after we bought the farm. The main appeal was better prices and access to a wide range of suppliers.
“We buy inputs from AF for all three departments of the farm - livestock, arable, and environmental. From machinery hire to fuel cards, we find it all really useful.
"Whatever we need, we just pick up the phone or send an email, and usually get the best prices. Plus, we can use our AF account with a wide range of suppliers, so we don’t need individual credit accounts. That’s a huge benefit.”
“We stock up on wearing parts, and hire things like the compressor we’ve had for harvest, and JCBs. We’ve even had discounts on new pick-up trucks through AF.
“We especially use AF for vet meds. As I can write prescriptions, we are able to buy direct. We’ve done some price comparisons and meds through AF can be as much as half the price.
“We’ve bought fertiliser through AF in previous years but are trying to be more regenerative and cut down on fertiliser use. We’re using our sheep and cattle to fertilise the land, whether directly or by spreading muck after housing them.
“We’ve also bought bulk LPG for a number of years, and AF recently helped us with the setup of our new grain silos.
Charlotte & her team use AF to procure everything from LPG to vet meds.
“We use My AF (was AF Interactive) a lot. It links up with FarmPlan and our farm business administrator finds that really useful because it imports easily all our invoices so saves her a lot of time.”
“In April last year we launched our meat box business – Foxburrow Farm Shop. I wanted a website where people could order easily. I realised people like to pick and choose their own cuts, so we worked with local business Naked Marketing to build an online shop.
Launched last year, Foxburrow's meat box business gives customers the chance to choose the cuts they want
“We set it up because beef prices weren’t very high at the time and we were frustrated - why is it that you have this amazing, grass-fed, high-welfare animal and still get so little for it at market?”
Browse Foxburrow Farm's website.
Buy Foxburrow Farm's meat online.
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