Organic food firm is growing (From Gazette & Herald)

Organic food firm is growing

9:40am Wednesday 8th February 2012 in Farming news

A FORMER primary school teacher has set up a new organic food business.

Caroline Barugh set up Goodness Vegetables on seven acres of farmland near Sheriff Hutton, where she now grows about 70 different varieties of vegetables.

Caroline, who previously grew her own vegetables in an allotment, sells organic vegetable boxes in the York and Ryedale area. They are picked freshly each morning and delivered that afternoon, as well as sold directly from the shed on the site between April and October.

She also sells organic pork and free range organic eggs, and plans to keep bees to produce honey and goats to start producing milk and cheese.

She said: “I wanted to work outside and watch nature, so I started knocking on people’s doors to ask if they had any land they would rent me. I was absolutely fed up of supermarket shopping and the business is aimed at people like me to help them avoid supermarkets.”

She started renting one acre and now she owns seven acres and has quit her teaching job to run the business full time.

She also has an orchard, which grows currants, and this year she intends to specialise in salad leaves.