So here it is my first ever blog post…of any kind…anywhere. I took some advice that I should probably commit to doing one every two weeks…thats realistic apparently. We’ll see. As time goes on this could all very well change and I’ll try to mix it up with some topical ones and some more based on my personal experiences I can share. I’m off to Cornwall next week so hopefully grab a few snaps and food bits I can talk about on here for the next post! For now though I’ve had a fairly uneventful week so this first post is all about a fun annual event that’s a great idea for a day out with the family called Open Farm Sunday. There's a moment every Open Farm Sunday — usually somewhere between the tractor tour and someone's gran selling shortbread out of a tent in the car park — when you realise that the food on the supermarket shelf came from a place. A real place, with people in it, often within an hour of where you live.
This Sunday, 7 June, is the 20th annual Open Farm Sunday. It's free, it's all over the country, and if you've never been, this is the year to put that right.
The format varies farm to farm. Some have proper days out — tractor rides, sheep-shearing demonstrations, a queue for the cake tent. Others are smaller and quieter, just a chance to walk around a working farm with the people who run it and ask the daft questions you've always wanted answered. ("How many of these do you have? How much land does it take? Will my dog die if she continues to eat manure on our walks before I can stop her?") Most are aimed at families obviously. A surprising number are aimed at adults with a polite interest in mud and animals. Some are both.
The official find-a-farm tool is at farmsunday.org. Type your postcode in, see what's near you, ring ahead if a booking is suggested. Most of the time you can just turn up.
A small confession: I love these kinds of things. The kids enjoy them and the dog gets to absolutely lose her mind at the smell of livestock. It is genuinely hard, in 2026 where everything you could want is immediately on your doorstep, to keep hold of the fact that food has a history — that someone reared the cow, milled the flour, made the cheese. You can read about it. You can watch programmes about it. None of that lands the way a thirty-second conversation with a farmer in a polo shirt does, on his/her own land, while a calf chews on your trouser leg.
So that's the easy bit. Sunday is sorted.
The harder question — and this is where I'll admit a vested interest — is what you do on the other 364 days of the year. Because farms are working all year round, but most of us forget they exist between events. The shop at Park Farm that does unbelievable gammon amongst other things is just five minutes away from where I live, and I have driven past it for years without knowing it was there until about a year ago.
That's the gap myfoody is trying to close. The site is a directory of independent farm shops, butchers, bakeries, breweries, and the rest, all across the UK. Free to use, no ads, no paid placements. You put in where you live (or where you're holidaying); you get a list of what's near you. People who already know the area can leave reviews of the places they rate. The point of it, really, is to make "find a great farm shop" as easy as "find a Costa", because at the moment those aren't even close.
So this is what I'd love you to do. On Sunday, go and find a farm — even an hour spent at one is better than not bothering. Then, on Monday, have a look at what else is listed near you on myfoody. There's almost certainly somewhere good you've been driving past. And if your favourite place isn't on the site yet, send a suggestion and I'll get it added.
The shortbread tent on Sunday is one thing. But the bakery in the next village over does shortbread too, all year, every week, and you can go there on a Tuesday.
— Tom
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