Our story

Tim May at Kingsclere Estates in Hampshire started Pitch Up! in November 2021. He could see abundant opportunities with the raw materials on the farm, but didn’t have the time or headspace to do them all himself.

Instead of looking for employees or apprentices, or renting land out to tenant farmers, Tim wanted to work together with Partner businesses – developing new ventures, sharing the risks and the rewards, and learning side by side. This integrated approach to farming and enterprise is something he’d studied in locations around the world, and his longstanding partnership with The Roaming Dairy had already successfully proven this concept.

In just a few years, Pitch Up! has become a growing national movement, with nine Partner farms in the Pitch Up! family for 2025.

Swallows at Hampton Estate | Photo: Jon Hawkins

Why are we doing it?

To grow a more sustainable and resilient farming and food system, with more opportunities, diversity and flexibility. Businesses and start-ups joining Pitch Up! can also benefit from a low-risk testbed for growth, new products and systems.

There’s a general assumption that you have to rent or buy a piece of land to be able to run a land-based or rural business, but Pitch Up! shows how this doesn’t have to be true.

It’s not about landlords and tenants, or employers and employees. The Pitch Up! model is based on the principle of sharing the risks and rewards – so farms offer up land or space to businesses at no charge, and share profits instead.

Growing together

Having multiple businesses on the same farm also means they can share/ have access to equipment/ machinery, instead of having to buy it all themselves. Some businesses also share employees, and everyone in the Pitch Up! community shares ideas, knowledge, contacts, routes to market and so on, to give a level of support much greater than for one business working alone.

Pitch Up! is also inspired by circular systems to design out waste – so wherever possible, businesses integrate to use each other’s by-products or waste (we like to call them co-products). For example – grains from a distillery fed to the pigs; manure from cattle helping fertilise the soil for a market garden; hides from butchered cows going to a micro-tannery for leather goods. The possibilities are endless.

East Neuk Market Garden vegetables at Bowhouse market, Balcaskie

Looking ahead

We’re particularly excited that the Pitch Up! idea has gained such momentum, and interest from other farms. Many have been taking this approach individually for some time, and it’s encouraging to hear their enthusiasm for being part of a wider collective movement.

Balcaskie in Scotland, joining in 2023, was our first Partner outside of Kingsclere, and in 2024 Pitch Up! tripled in size, including the Cherry family at Lannock Farm and Weston Park Farm – founders and hosts of the Groundswell regenerative agriculture festival.

Pitch Up! is completely self-funded – each Partner farm contributes to a shared pot to cover its running costs for that year. We’re growing intentionally slow and strong, welcoming three more new Partners in 2025.

For the future, we’d like to see Pitch Up! continue to grow year on year with more successful businesses and Partner farms across the UK – further expanding the opportunities and boosting the positive impact for rural economies, a cleaner food system and nature-friendly farming.