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The Farm Shop
Visit our 'Ask Farmer Copley' page with your questions answered on Video here or watch our customer testimonials
Farmer Copleys Farm Shop was the brainchild of Robert Copley (my husband) and myself (Heather). We had worked as a feeding and breeding advisor and an agronomist respectively. During that time we found it possible to purchase half a pig or quarter of a cow etc from a local farmer and live out of the freezer for months but what we really wanted was locally sourced fully traceable foods and a variety on a weekly basis....that's where the idea started 8 years ago.
We then moved back to the family farm to have our first son, the gorgeous Jacob, our youngest son Harry also equally gorgeous came along two and a half years later. Robert continued to work advising farmers and I was to set up a small farm shop to keep me out of mischief! The same farm shop has grown from an old block of 3 horse stables to a 3,100 square foot shop and cafe keeping 28 people out of mischief!
We opened the original shop 6 years ago on the 13th of December just in time for Christmas, we quickly discovered we had hit a real niche in the market and after two years increased to shop with an extension out the front still keeping it in the old barn style but with contempory inside. We put in new meat counters and by this stage had started making all our own pork and steak pies on site.
Robert visited America looking at Farm Shops or Farmers Markets as they call them in 2007 and came back stating the his BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) was that the shop needed to bigger again. We thus set about with planning permissions etc to increase and convert the cattle shed to the side and make it all one farm shop. We opened this third phase of the farm shop on the 9th of December 2008 (we only started the conversion on the 15th September 2008!)
During our short time in business we have grown not only in size but also ourselves from farmers into business people. We have won numerous competitions along the way starting with the Yorkshire Show Best Farm Shop In Yorkshire, this was followed with some Harvey Nicholls Taste Awards for our Beef and Steak Pies (2 years in a row), we then went on to become a finalist at the Butchers Shop Of The Year Awards 2006 where we won Most Innovative Business, The following year we were a finalist for at the same awards for Best Farm Shop In GB, Most Innovative Butchers Shop and had an apprentice up for Young Butcher Of The Year, we won the first two which really catapulted the business to new heights and gave us the confidence to expand to the third stage. There have also been numerous awards for Best Sausage In Yorkshire, Pork Pies etc and Business Awards with Wakefield First.
For 2009 we have just been notified that we are through to the Butchers Shop Of The Year again for Best Farm Shop In GB and also in the finals for FARMA Best On Farm Retailer and Best On Farm Butchery so we must be doing something right.
There is nothing clever about what we do at Farmer Copleys, we just do things properly.
Know what you're eating.....
Farmer Copley Your Local Farmer
Opening Times:
Mon - Sat
9:30am - 5:30pm
Sundays & Bank Holidays
9:30am - 4:30pm
Find Us:
Farmer Copleys
Ravensknowle Farm
Pontefract Road
Purston
Pontefract
West Yorkshire
WF7 5AF
Visit us here.
