Supermarket food scares boost farm shop sales

FARM shops have boomed over the past decade as middle-class shoppers have become suspicious of supermarkets following a number of food safety scares.

The number of farm shops in the UK has nearly tripled from just 1,200 in 2004 to around 3,500 today.

Once seen as quaint and overpriced, they are now the fastest growing part of the meat-selling industry, the Guild of Butchers has said.

Shoppers are also starting to turn to online farm shops like Farmdrop, which uses a mobile app to link local producers and customers directly, and deliver groceries to their door.

It comes as the amount of meat and fish sold in UK supermarkets saw a 1.8 per cent decline over the past year to August, Kantar Worldpanel data shows.

Consumer trust in retail giants has been dented by food scandals such as the horsemeat scandal and last week’s revelations over “dirty” practices at Britain’s biggest chicken factory.

Four in ten shoppers (39 per cent) have been to a farm shop in the past 12 months and 47 per cent intend to visit one in the future, said a poll of 2,000 people for the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB).

Michael Richardson, of the AHDB, said: “Consumers are increasingly looking for reassurance on the provenance and quality of what they buy and that it has come from somewhere as local as possible.

“It is not just about meat. As soon as you enter a farm shop, it offers an array of products that complement the meat offering.”