Soil Association Turns 80 🎉

Some stills above from a video filmed at ONHQ a couple of weeks ago to celebrate the 80th birthday of the Soil Association.

A small film crew joined us on one of our very early warehouse mornings to capture our Sean reading a poem for the SA’s 80th anniversary video. While the rest of us bustled around dishing out your orders, Sean made his way through the warehouse clutching a box of radishes, reciting his lines, and avoiding any and all eye contact. 😄

After what felt like another 80 years – and quite a few takes – they finally got the shot, and last week we got to see the finished result. Sean may have described it as one of the most embarrassing moments of his life, but we think he smashed it and the video turned out top.

If you’d like to watch the final video, click the link here.

Good afternoon folks,

Yesterday was our busiest ever non Christmas-week day and more orders left the door than ever before. But for Fairtrasa booking our delivery onto a boat in June (shakes fist), the day ran smoothly and that’s testament to our ace wee team, who collectively put a top shift in.

I’m glad to say that we’re continuing to grow and we’ve plenty of space and veg to take and new folk who are looking to work with us too. As we expand, we’re able to support more growers and suppliers on the list whilst remaining staunchly loyal to the ones that have allowed us to get where we are as a company today. It’s really pleasing and special mention should also go to our co-op’s longstanding directors who have allowed us a lot of freedom over the last 15 years or so to try and get our gaff into a healthier position. There remains a world of work to do but we’re blessed with a lovely wee team just now who are up for the challenge.

Excitingly, our government’s food, farming and environmental department (Defra) are taking an interest in what we’re doing just now too. We’ve currently in three separate channels of dialogue with them. I won’t bore you with too many of the details before we’ve actually achieved anything significant with them but we’re helping to lobby for policy and economic support for new and existing market gardeners, they’ve asked for stats about our business to understand more about how we’re succeeding and through our work with Bury’s Local Authority Catering team, Defra just awarded them £155,000 for progress the good work they’re doing improving the food provisions for school kids in Bury.

Lastly, just a quick note to let you all know that Zann and Fairtrasa have an order cut off this week for tomorrow at 3pm so if you want anything from them make sure you get your orders in before then.

Anyhoo, I’ll pass over to our Ell who’s got all the details about the new things appearing on the list this week…

Fruit & veg updates:

• Starting in the UK, we’re sad to say that we are coming to the end of the UK carrots now, Royal Oak have some left but these are limited so as always we will share out the best we can. To fill this gap we will be starting with new season carrots from Green Organic’s.

• In better news, Brickyard are returning to our list this week with some new season Rocket potatoes. We did have the old season of these on last year so we’re excited for the new ones and George at Brickyard says they are tasting amazing.

• Another couple of growers returning to the list this week are Home Farm Organics starting with both bagged and loose spinach and Brookhouse Farm with some little gem twin packs.

• Staying on the UK additions, Bedlam has some Xenolim asparagus, purple artichokes and baby purple artichokes while Strawberry Fields has some cos lettuce and thyme for us.

• Lastly, The Tomato Stall increase their offering once again adding some cocktail vine tomatoes and red mini plum tomatoes and Haslum also add some tomato vines.

• From Spain, Biovergel add red Canden apricots, cherries, nectarines and flat peaches while Bioandalusi has some lemons and barberina oranges.

• Elsewhere in Spain, Campo has some Hokkaido squash, Ecosur some flat beans, Thaymin from apricots and peaches and we welcome Las Hortichuelas back to the list starting with some cantaloupe melons and mini watermelons.

• From Holland, Zann add some gold kiwis and Forelle pears.

• From France, Bio & Bio add some burlat cherries, nectarines and peaches, Solagora add some flat peaches and our top picks from Dynamis are the micro leaf rocket, dried peanuts and savory.

• To line your pantry’s, we’ve hot sauce, hot ‘n’ smoky kimchi and mixed kimchi from Loving Foods and some blueberry, raspberry and strawberry jams from Hembridge.

• Lastly, before we sign off – we had such a great response to Brown Cow Dairy last week that we received far more orders than expected. As these are coming through as a follow on product, if you placed an order for anything from Brown Cow Dairy last week, it won’t be arriving until next week. With such a big influx of orders, we’re giving it a little rest from the list this week and will have it back on once everyone has received their deliveries.

I’m currently on a train to Devon (specifically the floor of a train to Devon) for a meeting that’s being hosted at Riverford’s farm near Totnes with some of their execs, our grower pal, Roddy and a guy called Alex who runs an organic wholesalers in London called Langridge. Should be a really interesting couple of days- will be sure to take lots of photos and report back next week. You’ve got our Cathryn over your orders in my absence.

Have a top week, pals
Sean, Cathryn, Mads, Ell, Alph and Team ON x

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