Grown in Totnes Case Study
The Idea Behind Grown in Totnes
Grown in Totnes was a Transition Town Totnes enterprise that set out to increase the range of local food available to the Totnes area. It grew out of the realisation that local farmers mainly produce meat and dairy and if we are to have a healthy, balanced and climate-sensitive diet there is a need for more variety in our local food production. We were particularly interested in staple crops that can be dried and stored; principally grains and pulses, including the many varieties of peas, lentils and beans. Staples have a much longer shelf life than perishable foods and their energy requirements are low as they do not require refrigeration, making them the ideal climate emergency store cupboard food. They also provide an important source of nutrients during the ‘hungry gap’; between January and May, when there is much less fresh produce available. Grains and pulses are the unsung heroes in local food security.
Visit page 4 of this bulletin article which captures our story, written by Charlotte Bickler, of the Organic Research Centre.
Here you can listen to a podcast recorded at the public open day of our processing unit. Co-founder of the Transition movement, Rob Hopkins, talks to Holly Tiffen and Emily Reed from the Grown in Totnes team, and John Letts, our advisor on all aspects of growing, processing and heritage crop production. This recording provides a useful introduction to Grown in Totnes and gives an overview of our ambitions and place in the local food movement.
What We Did
In 2014, Grown in Totnes crowdfunded to pay for small-scale processing equipment, enabling us to buy a polisher, flaker, mill and sieve and set ourselves up in the heart of Totnes. We helped local farmers to diversify by growing a variety of crops for us, and we produced a range of products where all elements were kept within 30 miles of Totnes; the growing, processing, packaging and selling, something unique at the time. Our community was central to the enterprise throughout; as volunteers, as supporters and as our customers. In 2018, when it was clear that we could not become financially viable within the period of our funding (received from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation), we offered the project back to the community and passed it on to a collaboration of two of our farmers and a local artisan baker.
How it Works
The Case Study has been written to follow the same index numbering as the Checklists, this way you can cross reference easily between the two.
For example you may read about Building Practicalities in 3.1.1 Checklist - in Setting-up the Processing Unit, and then want to read about how we achieved this in reality at Grown in Totnes. This will be found in 3.1.1 of the GinT Case Study.
Don’t be confused if you find the numbering going array in the Case Study: some sections covered in the checklist are not relevant to the Case Study and so have been missed out in order to keep the numbering consistent between the two sources of information. Where a section is missing we have indicated this in the Case Study index.
The Case Study comprises as much visual information as possible, expect a combination of written text, documents, photographs, animations and videos.
Planning Your Enterprise
Here we tell you about the market research we undertook to build a solid business case for our vision; the decisions we made about our constitution and the detail of our business plan. We highlight the importance of getting advice from those that had a lot more experience than we did, demonstrate how we involved the community, and the different ways we raised funds.
1.1 Organisational and Financial
1.2 Fundraising
1.3 Market Research
1.4 Marketing and Comms Strategy
1.5 Understanding Our Product
1.6 Finding Advisors
1.7 Producing Our Business Plan
1.8 Setting Up Financial Record Keeping
1.9 Legislative and Certification Obligations
Growing the Crops
We discuss the costs and processes involved for our farmers in growing our crops, the things to include in a contract, how we decided what to grow, as well as seed and the associated legal considerations we came across. We look at sowing rates, times and yields and the various risks our crops encountered.
2.1 Cost of Growing the Crop
2.2 Contracts
2.3 Population Crops
2.4 What to Grow
2.5 Not Included In This Case Study
2.6 Not Included In This Case Study
2.7 Risks
2.8 Yield
Processing Facilities
Time spent getting the right premises for your processing facility, designing an efficient layout for the flow of goods, purchasing the right equipment and knowing in advance what your legal obligations are as a food processor will reward you richly in the long run. In this Chapter we show you the layout of our premises and provide copies of our HACCAP and Health and Safety documents, and the records that we created to provide accountability at every stage.
3.1 Finding Suitable Processing Premises
3.2 Processing Equipment
3.3 Layout and Flow
3.4 Legal Requirements
Harvesting the Crops
We explore when harvest time is, how to identify when the crop is ready and the things to ensure are in place in advance. We highlight the issues around using contractors and alternatives to the combine. We discuss other harvest products we created markets for and demonstrate how we engaged our community around harvest celebrations.
4.1 When to Harvest the Crop?
4.2 What to Put in Place Prior to Harvesting
4.3 Alternatives to the Combine
4.4 Straw for Housing
4.5 Community Involvement
Care of the Crops
Here we discuss the challenges we encountered during the short window there is after harvest to optimise the quality of the crops, and our many learnings along the way. We provide detail on various crop quality tests that we undertook and how we monitored and dealt with infestations.
5.1 Crop Care
5.2 Storage
5.3 Crop Quality and Measuring
5.4 Infestations and Crop Care
5.5 Not Included In This Case Study
Processing the Crops
We describe the different products we made and the equipment required to produce them. We discuss our equipment: uses, limitations, trouble shooting and maintenance requirements. We detail the monitoring we undertook to be legally compliant and create full traceability. We highlight the important role of volunteers and detail how we supported them.
6.1 Not Included In This Case Study
6.2 What Grains to Process? And How?
6.3 & 6.4 Use & Care of Processing Equipment
6.5 The Paper Trail
6.6 People - Staff, Interns and Volunteers
Pricing and Delivery
In this chapter we discuss how we worked out our costs, our margins and our prices. We explain how we delivered our products and our thinking behind designing and acquiring our packaging.
7.1 The Cost of Making & Selling Our Products
7.2 Designing and Choosing Our Packaging
7.3 Pricing Our Products
7.4 Distributing Our Products Our Customers
Marketing and Comms
We detail how we created our marketing strategy and the tools we used to get our message to our community; everything from social media, printed materials, in-store promotions and community events, to our newsletter and website. We tell our story on our packaging and detail the issues we encountered with meeting Trading Standards requirements.
8.1 Our Marketing Strategy
8.2 How Would Our Products be Used?
8.3 Telling Our Story on Our Packaging
8.4 Printed Materials Used to Tell Our Story
8.5 Our Online Presence
8.6 Not Included In This Case Study
8.7 Not Included In This Case Study
8.8 Not Included In This Case Study
8.9 Education and Awareness Raising
Planning for the End
All good stories should have a beginning, middle and end, and in our view the end of the best story is the beginning of the next, and so it was with Grown in Totnes. In this chapter we share how we turned the challenge of the end of Grown in Totnes into an opportunity for others within our community to grasp and take up the baton.
9.1 Approaching the End
9.2 Back to the Community
9.3 How the Toolkit Came About
9.4 Was Grown in Totnes a Success?
