Fiona and Rob Cunningham bought the Maynards Farm Bacon business in January 2001. They produce traditionally cured bacon, ham and sausages.
Fiona was brought up in the countryside of the Scottish Borders. She left school and went into the restaurant business with a view to becoming a restaurant manager. She worked in Glasgow, New York and London in a variety of hotels and restaurants looking for a range of experiences. She met Rob in London. When she was advised that to succeed in her chosen career she would 'need to eat and sleep the business. It was more than a job, it was a way of life.' she decided to look for alternatives. They lived in Fulham with Ella their first child and decided to buy a business that they could work together. Rob had a background in pig farming, so they settled on Maynards Bacon and came to Prees Green.
Within three months of taking over, they were set back by the outbreak of Foot and Mouth. They used the time to sort the curing recipes, negotiate with trading standards and other bodies and focus on the quality of their products.
They were supported by Heart of England Fine Foods and developed the farm shop as a retail outlet for other local producers and built up their 'home market' across Shropshire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire. Fiona admits that they were unprepared for what they were getting into. 'Had we done our homework properly we would have thought twice about it. We have never worked so hard in our lives.' They now employ 5 part-time staff including a butcher.
They source their pigs locally and offer a range of recipes in the curing process each giving the bacon a distinctive flavour. They keep three New Zealand Kune Kune pigs on the small holding as pets. They rent the remaining acres to a local farmer.
The more distant deliveries are sent out overnight, dispatching sausages to Edinburgh for a bangers and mash party and sending bacon to France via a small export company in Portsmouth. They enter various competitions and in 2003 won the Silver medal in the West Midlands Sausage Competition. They prefer attending local shows because the visitors who taste their products usually want to be able to drive out and buy them. The shop offers a diverse range of produce that provides the ingredients for a full menu. They have also achieved the status of becoming Rick Stein Food Super Heroes and Waitrose Small Producer Awards Finalists for 2003. |
