MY LIGHT BULB MOMENT
Organic food entrepreneur
CLARE MARRIAGE, 65, founded Doves Farm Foods, an organic and gluten-free foods business, with her husband, Michael, in 1978. They have three children, Jethro, 35, Rupert, 37, and Madeleine, 33. MY MOTHER was an amazing cook. I loved coming home from school to fresh, hot bread and her strawberry jam. I remember helping with everything, from shelling peas to making Christmas pudding.
But then Mum got very ill and was advised to cut all gluten from her diet. At the time, gluten-free versions of anything just didn’t exist. She lived off rice and maize-meal flatbread, day in, day out. It was devastating.
I started reading up on different cuisines that used ingredients we could all eat, such as whole grains, beans, lentils, chickpeas and brown rice, but you still couldn’t buy most of these in supermarkets — I had to go to special health food stores. We forget that, in the Sixties and Seventies, it was almost impossible to get hold of even wholemeal bread.
Then I met my husband, Michael, a farmer. He was also interested in organic food — a concept thought Freee breakfast cereals, from €3.15 each, dovesfarm.co.uk to be very strange back then. It went against the agrochemical farming that was in vogue, but we believed strongly that it was better for the environment and for our health.
We converted one strip of land on our farm into an organic wheat crop, as an experiment. Two years later, it was flourishing, so we bought a grinding mill and made our first batch of organic, wholemeal flour.
This was my lightbulb moment: using our maize crops, I realised I could make gluten-free flour for my mum. Suddenly we were producing food previously impossible to buy.
We established Doves Farm Foods on a budget of €1,100, initially making organic wholegrain and gluten-free flour.
The early days were hard work; the supermarkets thought we were mad. Michael would climb a ladder and pour grain in the mill and I’d pack it at the kitchen table. I had our first child four years in, and I remember sitting up in the hospital bed the day after, doing the accounts.
Today, we sell 47 types of flour and gluten-free foods such as breakfast cereals, pastas and cookies. Our products are stocked online and in major retailers, including Tesco.
We’ve recently launched Freee By Doves Farm, home to all our glutenfree food produced in dedicated facilities. Our turnover last year was €20 million.
I won’t forget the first time Mum, now 89, tried our gluten-free flour — she was so touched and thrilled. And that’s what it’s all about.
freee-foods.co.uk