Down to earth integrity!
Brought up on a farm, working as a management consultant and returning to farming, Guy Watson brought something from outside and applied it to a “field” in which he had a passion.
After starting an organic farming business from nothing, and after many trials and tribulations, he latched onto distribution by delivering food boxes directly to customers. The business grew until he was personally delivering boxes weekly to 800 customers; nowadays the business serves 40,000 customers weekly through a network of co-operating growers and franchised distributors and has revenues over £30 million ($45m) per year.
In the early days, he had a tough time:
We had some disastrous experiences trying to grow strawberries and another near disaster with leeks, which suffered a kind of fungal rot. All the while the chemical salesmen were whispering in my ear.
as he started, grew and developed the business, as reported in this article.
Learn more about this farmer who loves picking this own food and about another farmer’s reaction of:
Shouldn’t do that boy!
in this video:
I am a fan of Riverford, and can vouch for this superb example of integrity in business. All the elements of the business hang together as a consistent whole. We hear that larger businesses aim to achieve this, but Riverford does it!
The more that I know about Riverford Organic the better that it becomes: from the boxes and bags (all returned and reused) in which their produce is delivered, to the wonderful weekly newsletter delivered with each box (each customers is receiving a weekly “blog post”!) which is also on their weblog. Everything about their communication with their customers is very impressive.
Oh, you’ve guessed, he lives in Devon, England.
By John Lewis
Learning from Dogs 
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