Pitch Up! businesses
Meet some of the businesses who’ve successfully pitched and are now based on our farms
We love the variety of businesses that have joined our farms through Pitch Up! – with enterprises at all stages, from start-ups to established businesses relocating.
There are lots of other businesses already based at our Pitch Up! Partner farms too, from established players like The Roaming Dairy, Scotland the Bread, Futtle, East Neuk Market Garden, Botivo Drinks and Leavened, to Kingsclere Counselling and Ibworth Woodlands Burials – and other new enterprises from Pitch Up! 2024 who are working with the Partner farms but not quite ready to launch yet.
The list of new Pitch Up! businesses is growing all the time, but here are a few to give you a taster…
The Roaming Smoker
What? Mad Max style meat smoker upcycled from an old diesel tank and a skip found on the farm
The Roaming Smoker is a mobile meat smoker and roaster upcycled from waste materials found on Kingsclere Estates. Chris approached Tim via Pitch Up! 2023, and they then worked together to weld the materials to make an operational device.
Inspired by American brisket BBQ-ing, Chris’s smoker turns the low-value cuts of meat from (another Kingsclere partner) The Roaming Dairy’s old dairy cows into delicious smoked meats. Over 2024, Chris travelled to festivals and events across the UK to serve up his food to eager audiences.
Visit siteWandering Feathers
What? Pastured poultry/ eggs at Kingsclere
Wandering Feathers is a mobile pastured poultry/ eggs business that applied to Pitch Up! 2024. The founder, Rodrigo, is an experienced chef leaving behind London’s high end hospitality world to live off the land in Hampshire.
Their chickens follow the Roaming Dairy herd already set up on the estate, and produce some of the tastiest, most sustainable eggs around.
The small flocks live in mobile sheds that move every two days, with the chickens spending their days following the cows – moving freely outside for 8-12 hours a day. This means they’re constantly grazing on fresh organic pasture, enjoying the grass, clover and chicory, as well as nutritious bugs and worms they find in the cow dung. This plays an important part in the farm’s system – building soil fertility, but also minimising parasites that could affect the cows’ health.
Visit siteFife Beekeepers
What? Educational apiary
Fife Beekeepers Association approached Balcaskie following the launch of Pitch Up! at Balcaskie in 2023. Since then they’ve built an apiary which is supporting the farm’s biodiversity and pollination. The hives supply businesses based at Balcaskie with beeswax and local honey, and are a site of educational tours that are helping to build a network of skilled beekeepers to support this part of our ecosystem.
Visit siteVandyke Bros Coffee
What? Specialty coffee roaster
Vandyke Bros moved from the highlands of Scotland to the central belt of the lowlands at Balcaskie in summer 2024. Tony and his team have now moved into a newly refurbished production unit on the farm, and are supplying their coffee to local cafés and other outlets nearby. Their waste – from coffee grounds to hessian bags to old palettes – are all used by other businesses based at Balcaskie.
Visit siteStocks Events
What? Farm to table catering company
Pitch Up! 2023 brought Stocks Events to Balcaskie, initially with the events catering kitchen, and then the Cookshop. Stocks are bringing the ingredients from other Balcaskie producers, including the Butchery at Bowhouse and East Neuk Market Garden, to the table and counter. Stocks Kitchen is now open seven days a week as a food shop with cookware.
Visit siteCalf at Foot Dairy
What? Micro dairy and school producing milk without separating cows from their calves
The Calf at Foot Dairy™️ methods were pioneered by Fiona Provan through her belief that dairy cows should keep their calves until their natural weaning age – putting welfare before profit, because health, happiness and the ethical treatment of animals should always come first. The Calf at Foot Dairy is well established and has been featured in the national and international press, but thanks to Pitch Up! 2024, Fiona is setting up at Weston Park Farm as part of their new Groundschool project.
Visit siteHealth & Field
What? Wellness education from the land and on the land, from workshops to retreats
“Where soil health meets your health…” Health & Field is a natural wellness education business in its early stages, setting up as part of Groundschool at Weston Park Farm. It’s the brainchild of Destiny Joelivia, who is also a Soil Association ambassador.
Visit siteBaboon Adventures
What? Electric scooter company
Baboon Adventures is an off-road electric scooter adventures company, setting up their second location at Kingsclere Estates.
The company guides visitors around the 3,000-acre estate, along technical trails, muddy tracks and woodland paths.
Visit siteMorrow
What? Alternative coffee grown in the UK
Morrow is an experienced team of professionals and researchers looking to “redefine commodity coffee production”. They craft coffee from locally grown/ sourced pulse and grain crops and upcycled materials, instead of coffee beans. While carefully replicating the aroma and flavour of traditional coffee.
They are setting up at Weston Park Farm in Hertfordshire after applying to Pitch Up! in 2024. The plan is to plant out a few small experimentation areas of chicory and dandelion plants, and will harvest these to be used in their flavour experiments and first batches of coffee. They will also have a lab style set-up in one of the farm buildings and will use this as their innovations/experiment base using small-scale coffee roasting and grinding machinery. It will be small scale initially and wouldn’t involve any large scale cropping, but they may use some naked barley and einkorn that Weston is growing on a bigger scale if the flavours work out for them.
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