Soil Association's BOOM Awards

It was a real honour to be nominated for the Soil Association’s BOOM awards (Best of Organic Market). We were in the Organic for All section with 3 nominations out of 6 categories. It felt amazing that the work that we do at the farm (and with Growing Good) is being recognised by the wider industry. A massive thanks to our customers who are along with us on the journey.

It was a great chance to meet people who are innovators, communicators and advocates in the organic market.

I especially enjoyed an in-depth veg box chat with Able & Cole’s head of systems engineering and am amazed that we have such similar fulfilment processes despite being at a completely different scale.

Back to hoeing and watering the following day, where I we are loving the sunshine and heat, even though our plants are suffering a bit!

https://www.soilassociation.org/certification/events/boom-awards/boom-award-winners/

Organic Champion

Winner – Sean Ruffle, Organic North

George from Sandy Lane Farm runners up

Organic Retailer

Winner – Better Foods.

Sandy Lane Farm runners up

Organic Network

Winner – Growing Good (the software platform that we run our box scheme on)

Growing Good

Those who have been with us for more than 4 years will remember that our Veg Box scheme used to be called Ten Mile Menu. It was a joint effort between Steve and I (the two guys with specs) that we ran for 10 years together.

We realised that, although we had a fairly advanced website for the veg box industry, it was a real challenge to solve the specifics of running a subscription-based veg box model - from a shopping site, to customer flexibility, to packing and delivery logistics.

Four years ago, I took over the running of the veg box scheme (when it was renamed Sandy Lane Farm), while Steve set to work to see if we could make our veg box world easier and also enable other time-poor, cash-poor growers to do the same thing.

Almost 3 years ago we started using the platform that Renee (holding the award) put together. I can honestly say it has totally transformed our business - stripping out so much admin hassle so that we can get on with doing what we love, growing veg in a manner that puts nature and community at its heart.

Barcombe Nurseries were user number two (Martin, the remaining person in the picture) was the veg box admin there, and now manages customer support for Growing Good. We now have nearly 50 veg box schemes using the platform, with more onboarding by the week.

It is such a valuable resource for our farm to be part of a community of other veg boxers who inspire us to get better all the time. The great thing is that the platform sits quietly in the background, as a facilitator, while the grower builds a loyal customer base. The customer relationship is with the local grower, not a national brand. It truly has the capacity to shift local food supply to have broader appeal and make small-scale growers more successful and connected.