About Havenhills Field & Kitchen
Jonathan & Karen
We began growing produce here in 2022 with the aim of offering exciting vegetable based foods that are both nutritious and have a gentle footprint. and with the intention of inspiring people to eat more vegetables.
It was partly selfish as we could not find organic vegetables grown locally, and it was partly about trying to offer an alternative to the food on offer, much of which is damaging our health and that of the planet.
We want to see whether we can find a way to farm on a small scale but produce foods that not only have few food miles but are put together with thoughtful packaging where every step of our process has an eye on our carbon footprint. It is not going to solve the problems that face the World but it is our small way of doing something about this ecological disaster we face.
We have both worked with food, (Jonathan having run the Food Ferry for 15 years, London's first delivery food market and Karen has been working as a food photographer), but market gardening is new to us so we are constantly learning and developing to create a small pocket of biodiversity at Havenhills using agroecological and organic methods.
Jonathan manages operations and the field, Karen manages the kitchen and marketing.
Join us on our journey...
Substack: Field and Kitchen
If you are interested in learning more about why we are doing this then join us on Substack as Karen tries to make sense of our current food system and the conflicting advice about food.
The Team
Will
Will helps us out in our field on a Friday. He has his own market garden near Pattingham which he is developing at the moment, and he often provides us with some of his fruit and vegetables. He shares our values of growing without synthetic chemicals and prioritising looking after the soil. He studied business at Birmingham.
Sam
Sam is enthusiastic about all things outdoors, he is very practical and helps mainly in the field but also in the kitchen when things get busy. He studied outdoor education at Shrewsbury college and loves cycling and fishing.
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Natalie
Natalie is a trained chef who works Wednesday to Friday with us cooking our menu each week. She trained in Shropshire, working in the Park House and Madeley Court hotel, before moving to us she lead the kitchen team at Shifnal Primary School. She is very creative and also helps make our jams, jellies and chutneys.