Goodies History
My late father bought French's Farm in 1959 as a small mixed farm growing wheat, barley, sugar beet and potatoes. A contract with Wall's allowed my Father to diversify into breeding pigs for their market and a contract with a local meat merchant meant that through the winter months he would care for a herd of cattle from Ireland.
It seemed to me that diversity was the way forward, so, on leaving school I bought 25 turkeys to sell, as a solo enterprise over the Christmas period, and eventually ended up supplying 600.
One time in the 1980's potatoes were only selling for £20 per tonne and my father (who recognized and always encouraged my entrepreneurial spirit) said that if I was to take a tractor and trailer, loaded with bags of potatoes, to a nearby lay-by then he would give me 50p for every bag that I sold. It was not the most pleasant of work standing about in the cold weather but fortunately I was selling between 6 and 8 tonne every weekend and more importantly for me I was meeting customers and listening to what they wanted.
