New food hub for Kingsclere Estates

We spoke to Kingsclere Estates’ Tim May, about how this new facility will support businesses to thrive in his farm’s growing circular community.

Construction will start in spring 2026, but interested businesses can get in touch through Pitch Up! this year – as there’s an opportunity to configure the units to suit.

Tell us about your vision for the food hub – why do you want to do it?

We want a specialist facility that will attract innovative food and drink businesses to base themselves at Kingsclere and make the most of our abundant resources and community.

This facility will be an incubation hub for early-stage businesses that have most likely been developing their products in their kitchens, garages or gardens at home, finalising their business plans and funding models, and are ready to take the next step to scale production, expand into a professional set-up and bring their products to market.

It will be a brand-new, custom-built space for innovation to happen, showcasing what’s possible. And the building design includes a flexible retail/ café/ event space to bring people together – and the local community in – for tastings, pop-ups, talks and more, with vending machines for our products. It’s all about providing the space businesses need to grow and share the passion they have for great food and drink, and developing a strong local customer base.

We’re currently on the lookout for a partner to help run it – so would love to hear from interested organisations in the sustainable food, CSR and ethical investment space about that too.

How will it build on what you’re already doing on the farm?

We already have a number of larger properties and units for more established businesses needing more space. But the new food hub will fill the ‘early stage’ gap, giving food and drink start-ups a leg-up to grow their businesses in a smaller, more manageable space – with inspiration and support from similar stage businesses around them. It will also provide an important processing space for businesses and producers wanting to add value to what we grow on the farm.

The plan is to house 16 units of 6 x 10m, which include their own office area above. But at this stage, there’s an opportunity for new business tenants to configure the plans to suit their needs – for example joining two together if they need something a bit bigger or different zones etc.

Will they all use what you’re growing at Kingsclere?

Food and drink businesses will obviously have access to the organic raw materials we produce here – from milk and eggs to gluten-free oats, heritage grains, beans, seeds or foraged herbs, blackberries, elderflower and so on from our herbal leys, hedgerows and woods. And any new producers who might come on board through Pitch Up! – from veg growers to a mobile beef or pig farmer, for example. We’d love to see more products ‘completed’ on the farm for people to buy here.

But we’re not limiting new food hub businesses to using what we already have. We’re more interested in their business/ product itself – as long as it has a good/ sustainable approach to sourcing, we can also look at how to use their waste/ co-products on the farm. For example, a coffee business – we can’t grow coffee beans here, but we can use their used grounds for composting etc. And, if a business needs raw materials that we aren’t necessarily growing now but could do – for example herbs or a specific vegetable – we’d consider growing new crops for them if they’ve shown us that there’s a viable market for it.

How will it work for businesses moving in? What sort of agreements will they have?

We want to try to incorporate a sort of field rotation system, whereby each business will be incubating/ growing in the food hub for three years. So in the mid-long term, every year we’d have a mix of first-year businesses, second-year businesses, and third-year businesses – although we know that, statistically, some would fail and new spaces would open up.

Ideally, by the time they’ve neared the end of their contract, they’ll have grown and be well enough established to move somewhere else – could be one of our bigger units on the farm, but it’s up to them – to allow for another early-stage business to take their spot. That way there’s a consistent turnover of activity and the food hub will continue to evolve alongside the businesses it supports.

Food hub businesses will pay a monthly rate, which will be stated in their tenancy agreement. They’ll also have access to support, advice networks and potentially even job shares, through the Kingsclere community.

Towards the end of their three years, we can also consider investment for the right businesses.

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Want to be part of it? Contact Tim today through our Expression of Interest form

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