Farm Shop Business Magazine

WHAT IS THE HISTORY BEHIND
THE FARM SHOP?
The Barrie family moved from Scotland
in 1923 to Hall Farm Home grown
potatoes were sold from the farm for
over 40 years until John & Stella Barrie
opened the shop in 2001, extending
it to its current size in 2003 with a
butchery opening in 2009, the café
restaurant opened in 2006 and the
farm trail in 2014.
DOES THE FARM SHOP HAVE A
DELI COUNTER?
Our farm shop does have deli counter.
We have around 50 different cheeses
including the local cheeses Suffolk gold,
Suffolk blue and Suffolk brie from the
Coddenham dairy and Baron Bigod
which is made in Bungay. We also sell
our home cooked hams and pate. Salami
from Lane farm in Woodbridge.
HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT
SOURCING PRODUCTS FOR
THE FARM SHOP?
We are always keeping an eye out for
new products and locally sourced
products. We often get sent samples
from different companies, which helps
when wanting to buy in something new.
We find magazines very helpful and
trade shows, keeping us up to date on
what we should be selling.
WHAT CHANGES, IF ANY,
DID YOU MAKE DURING THE
PANDEMIC?
We found the pandemic a very hard
and testing time. We had to increase the
amount of staff we had to be able to cope
with the influx of customers. We had 1
member of staff just to man the door and
make sure we only had 12 people in the
shop at one time. Our restaurant and
farm trail had to close, but we were one
of the lucky businesses as we had the
shop, so we were still able to trade.
ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS MAINLY
LOCAL OR DO THEY COME FROM
FURTHER AFIELD?
We have a lot of local customers coming
in to shop from the surrounding villages
and find that customers from further
afield mostly shop here at weekends.
It’s a really good mix.
www.hallfarmshop.com
34 FARM SHOP BUSINESS MAGAZINE