Organic farmers have expanded their store during lockdown in response to growing demand.

Maple Farm at Kelsale, near Saxmundham — which is owned by Miranda and William Kendall — runs a modest retail operation as a sideline to its 400-acre organic crop growing business, which employs the equivalent of around six full-timers.

As with many farm retail operations, sales have boomed during the pandemic and a new expanded space was created thanks to a European Union (EU) LEADER grant.

“It’s for people who prefer local organic food and want a relationship with a nearby farm,” explained William, who is a business entrepreneur and also a past high sheriff of Suffolk. “We’re really proud of it.”

He added: “Our farming operations are labour intensive and inefficient by conventional assessments but having the store makes it all work. In my ideal world there would be at least one in every village. A 21st century version of the village shop.”

It’s the third time the retail space — which started selling organic eggs from a converted rabbit hutch — has been expanded.

“Word got out that our very good eggs could be bought cheaper at the farm gate and one day the farm manager here found two people arguing over the last box in the rabbit hutch,” said William.

“He settled it by asking if there was anything else we produced which could satisfy one of the customers and a week later the rabbit hutch was expanded to a redundant cattle stall. This worked well even in the first lockdown but now, thanks to an EU Leader grant and a lot of hard work by local builders and the Maple Farm team we now have Farm Stall 3.0.

“It looks very smart in a converted post war tractor shed.”

The store mainly sells the farm’s own produce, and other organic produce when that runs short.

“We sell a few other things from friends nearby who share the same vision for the future of agriculture. Fen Farm Dairy Bungay, Home Farm Nacton, Hodmedods, LA Brewery in Rendlesham, and some local meat butchered by Palfrey & Hall at Debenham,” he said.

It also sells bread baked with its own flour by The Woodbridge Cake Shop bakery.

William helped start LA Brewery in 2017 and was previously behind well-known food brands such as Green and Black’s organic chocolate and Covent Garden Soup before selling up. He’s a director of online grocer Farmdrop and a trustee of the Grosvenor Estate, which is owned by the Grosvenor family and has an arm called Wheatsheaf which invests in the future of food and farming.