Local production and sustainability are the whole strategy. The bread is from Glynde and the cakes from Buxted. The farm sources other produce from local providers, including butchers, bakers, cheesemakers, a dairy, a smokery, and a fishmonger. The café, the shop, and the farm create a local virtuous circle of quality food mostly grown, prepared, and consumed on the thirty-acre site. A man from the “Angry Whelk” in Bexhill visits with fresh fish on Fridays. (I hope he leaves contented.)
Lizzie, assisted by 12 part-time employees, manages the shop and café. The farms provide the fruit and vegetables and also supplies several farm shops nearby. This month sees the start of the apple harvest, when locals can bring their apples to be made into juice by the farm’s apple presses.
In common with most successful entrepreneurs, there is no spare time: managing the farm, its shop, and restaurant is a completely full-time occupation. Lizzie, who was once an occupational therapist, describes their first few years as challenging and invigorating, remarking that when she and her husband bought the place, neither had any experience of farming, retailing, or marketing. “While our eyes were wide open, we were slightly terrified the whole time.”
But then their “gorgeous” customers started to roll in, and business became easier. Covid ushered in a temporary but “phenomenal” boom in their trade as Lizzie spent all her waking hours cooking soups, pies, pasta dishes, etc, to be ordered and collected, ready to be heated up later. Nowadays she does admit to some occasional spare-time crocheting.
Today, they maintain their strong commitment to local fresh production and high quality, hard work, and dedication as the key to success. It’s exactly the same formula for most of the retail entrepreneurs in the Uckfield area. Lizzie and Bob Smith, purveyors of healthy home-made foods, are champions and survivors in the Uckfield tradition. They look forward to seeing all of you gorgeous locals soon.