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Occombe Farm Overview

Occombe Farm is a unique educational organic farm opened in 2006 by Torbay Coast and Countryside Trust.

Torbay Coast and Countryside Trust is the first independent organisation in the country to be granted full management and care of green sites by a local council.  It currently manages 1,750 acres of countryside on The English Riviera, including farmland, woodland, National and Local Nature Reserves, Sites of Special Scientific Interest, and 22 miles of the South West Coast Path.  This also includes the award-winning Cockington Country Park, Goodrington Seashore Centre and Berry Head National Nature Reserve.  Visit the Torbay Coast & Countryside Trust website here

The Occombe Farm project was built by the Trust, aiming to reconnect people with food, farming and the countryside, be an educational centre of excellence and to inspire people with a passion for good quality food that is produced locally and whose origins can be traced from the field to the fork.

Occombe Farm's points of interest:
  • Wild for Food - Occombe is about the connections between people, food, farming and the countryside and on a wider scale our health, animal welfare, sustainable living, and wildlife. Occombe is an example of how these can all work together in harmony to improve our quality of life and the quality of the world we live in.
  • Occombe's unique setting and combination of open organic farm, study centre, farm shop, butchery, bakery, café, nature trail, events and interactive media demonstrates clearly in an accessible and fun setting how the food we eat shapes the countryside we live in. Eating food grown by environmentally-friendly farms is one of the greenest, wildlife friendly things you can do - people can affect the world they live in by the choices they make as consumers
  • Experience - nowhere else in the region can you get this close to local wildlife, experience the day-to-day workings of an organic open farm and sample authentic Devon food and drink. Occombe is unique it communicates these links between the food we eat, how it is produced and the natural world to a predominantly urban audience.
  • The farm shop, café, organic bakery, delicatessen and traditional butchery as well as events such as tasting sessions and markets, bring consumers and producers together making people more aware of the range of food produced locally and inspiring them to source quality food locally
  • Occombe is grazed by traditional, regional breeds - North Devon Ruby Red cattle and Dorset Down sheep (a rare breed), Berkshire and Oxford Sandy and Black pigs, Light Sussex chickens and Aylesbury ducks
  • The Trust has set up a quality assurance system where each farm that supplies Occombe with fresh produce is encouraged by us to ensure they adhere to sustainable farming practices. By providing a market for food grown using these methods we are supporting the spread of these farming techniques
  • The Organic bakery and viewing panel from the café is the first of its kind in the area.
  • The Occombe burgers were voted the "best ever" by the BBC Good Food magazine.
  • Occombe is supporting and helping to develop the local food market, giving local producers and farmers a route to a new market.  In the future, we aim to supply local caterers and hoteliers with regional food from Occombe
  • Occombe Farm is a high-profile visitor attraction that is free to enter and open all year round. The farm project offers a new insight into what Devon has to offer as a holiday destination and will help attract new and repeat visitors to Torbay and will strengthen the tourist industry.
  • Occombe Farm received substantial Government support through DEFRA - in total a grant of £435,000, almost half of the project costs and one of the largest grants ever made through this scheme
  • Occombe is a fundamental part of the Trust's green policy and is a sustainable build throughout with a rainwater harvesting system, solar panels, wind turbine, heat exchangers, home-grown timber roof and boardwalk, composting, recycling facilities and even organic paint.
  • The Occombe Farm Shop was awarded the ‘Best Retail Newcomer 2008' at the FARMA annual awards ceremony (National Farmers' Retail & Markets Association).
  • Our vision is of a business with a heart, that is successful both educationally and commercially - but we need more space to do this in.  In 2007, thanks to an anonymous grant from a charitable trust, we were able to begin work on Torbay's first ever straw bale building - our new centre for food and farming which opened in December 2008.  The building was constructed by students from South Devon College, who secured funding from the Learning & Skills Council to provide tuition and project management, allowing the students to build the new education centre themselves, learning sustainable construction skills in the process.

For media enquiries, please contact Rachel Tapper at Torbay Coast & Countryside Trust on 01803 606035, or e-mail rachel.tapper@countryside-trust.org.uk