大象传媒

In early 2020, as Lockdown started, owners Charlie and Oliver Hemsley started a milk vending machine business. Deciding the price they could get for their organic milk was too low they decided to cut out the middleman and sell direct to consumers. They milk, pasteurise and deliver in chiller vans to our 15 sites in Dorset, Devon and Somerset. They only milk once a day, their cows are outdoors most of the year and entirely pasture fed.

In 2017, after losing a cider apple contract Stephen Ware reverted his intensive bush cider apple orchards to agroforestry. He and his team have developed alternative uses for the remaining fruit and additional interrow crops, mainly through a new insect protein rearing facility that aims to turn pulped apples to crickets and then those crickets into things like protein flour. With schemes like this Stephen is looking to marry regenerative farming with modern developments in agriculture.

Using an app developed the Scotland’s Rural college, Waitrose dairy farmers are trialling recording the behaviour of their cows to better understand and improve their emotional lives. The project looks at indicators such as how the cows interact with one another. They say the benefits for stock welfare, productivity and even reductions in the use of animal medicines could be significant.