Meet the Waitrose Duchy Organic farmers
Our organic food means no pesticides, kinder farming and better animal welfare, plus great-tasting produce. Three Waitrose Duchy Organic farmers explain why it’s a labour of love.
Meet the carrot producer
Norfolk has a reputation for flatness. Not so Houghton Hall: the 1,200-acre estate near King’s Lynn is gently undulating and dotted with woodland, hedgerows, trees and technicolour wildflower borders.
It’s also the home of estate tenant RBOrganic (RBO) – specifically, the company’s carrot-growing operation, which provides six million bags for the Waitrose Duchy Organic range every year.
“I think it’s their versatility,” says Joe Rolfe, RBO’s managing director. “You can do more with a carrot than you think.”
Being organic, RBO’s farm doesn't use the kind of chemicals that allow a single strain to be cultivated year-round. Waitrose Duchy Organic bunched carrots are pulled out by November, before the green fronds start to rot.
With the organic approach, Joe says, “you’re letting the plant plod along, working quite hard drawing nutrition from the soil. It gives it a phenomenal flavour: working to survive in that way creates extra sweetness.”
Meet the chicken farmers
Since 1939, six generations of the Tuft family have been farming 230 acres, keeping 14,000 organic and free range chickens as well as beef cattle and sheep.
John Tuft has been a Waitrose Duchy Organic chicken farmer since 2011: “We wanted to grow the business, so we went into poultry. Not putting all our eggs in one basket, you might say! And I love the variety of life.”
From 8am to 10pm, the Tuft chickens are let out to roam. There are four square metres of land per bird outside, and plenty of space to behave as nature intended inside, too.
“We want to get the word out that [organic produce] is on your doorstep and it’s worth the money – our approach is as natural as it possibly can be,” says John’s son, Jonathan.
And as a proud father of four, with a daughter who wants to be a farmer or vet, he promises: “Generation to generation, we’ll be keeping the business in the family.”
Shop Waitrose Duchy Organic meat
Meet the fruit grower
Nichol Farm near Teynham was founded in the 1920s by Nick Moor’s grandfather, gaining full organic certification in 1999. When Nick took up the farm, they grew 26 varieties of apple; now, they focus on three: Discovery and the two key Waitrose Duchy Organic crops, Gala and Spartan.
The organic approach, with its lack of pesticides, means the Kentish grower must battle adversaries including codling moths, which are tackled with lockets of pheromones – “It’s like Coco Chanel for moths,” says Nick.
After that, nature and Kent’s sunny climate are left to do their work before the fruit is hand-harvested in late summer. Nick has stepped back from the hands-on element of the harvest now, but can still be seen ambling the fruit-laden corridors daily, seeking blight.