Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Farmer and entrepreneur who founded Riverford Organics, building a multi-million pound veg box business on seasonal, sustainable produce.
On the island
Eight records
You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille
And I used to sing this on my tractor quite a lot. And it was a time when my first marriage was probably starting to fall apart, so it seems very poignant to me. I did have four children, they weren't hungry, and there were the crops in the fields. I love country music, I love its simple directness, and I can be a bit soppy as well. So, I love this track.
We've had some pretty wild parties on the farm over thirty years and they've kind of tamed down a bit now, which is a bit I feel a bit sad really in some ways, but you know, some of them used to go on all weekend and there was one particular party that used to happen on a Halloween and this band, the Tofu Love Frogs, came and played. Everyone came in fancy dress and almost everyone took magic mushrooms.
My mother loved Calypso. Actually, she grew up in Trinidad and Calypso was the music and she particularly loved Harry Belafonte. He is devastatingly handsome, which I suspect might have been one of the reasons my mum liked him so much.
I was not at all a cool teenager, but some of my friends were, and they heard that the Sex Pistols were playing in Plymouth. … I had no idea what to expect. I was probably wearing a pair of flared jeans and a roll neck sweater, not even a tweed jacket, you know. … Pretty dreadful music, really, I think.
Small Town BoyFavourite
I suppose when I did go to London and later in New York and started living life a bit as a young man and going to clubs and stuff, the best music was always in the gay clubs and I just think Jimmy Somerville is extraordinary and I think this is a really beautiful track. I also think he was an incredibly brave and principled individual actually.
It was actually after I'd left Manhattan and I was teaching these kids to sail on an island in a very remote part of Maine. And when I wasn't teaching sailing, I used to gravitate towards the kitchen on this island. … Talking Heads were playing all the time in the kitchen.
Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Man, gives you hope for the future that anyone can just be so cool and sexy and humorous and this track makes me laugh a lot and it is actually a track that Geeti and I played at our wedding.
It kind of takes me back to my heady days of discovery in New York and I think Grace Jones is just extraordinary in her sassy, strong, original. I mean she was so ahead of her time and I love this one. It makes me think of the New York streets.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:09How much of a significant change have you noticed in the way your customers shop and what they want from their vegetables these days?
Well, in 30 years, I'm afraid to say there has undoubtedly been a decline in cooking skills, and I'd say particularly being able to make use of the more humble vegetables, the beetroots and cauliflowers and cabbages, which is a bit frustrating because those are the things that grow so well in our climate. But you're right, I mean, more recently, I mean, vegetables taking kind of centre stage is something that I absolutely celebrate, and it's certainly what excites me.
Presenter asks
5:28Looking at the contents of your vegetable boxes, not everything is grown on your farm in Devon, and not everything is grown in Britain. When it comes to food miles versus polytunnels, why are food miles preferable?
Well, like so many things, it's just … a gross simplification of what is a very complex question. Sometimes local is best, but if you're looking at it from an environmental point of view, and we did a long study with Exeter University on this, it very often is better to import. In the case of hot house heated greenhouses producing peppers or tomatoes, it's somewhere between five and ten times more efficient in terms of CO2 emissions to grow them in Spain without heat rather than to grow them in the UK with heat. So we grow our own tomatoes from early July to the middle of October. That's when you can grow them without heat, and the rest of the time they come from a guy called Paco down near Almeria who grows them in tunnels without heat and that is environmentally the right thing to do.
The keepsakes
The luxury
I'm hoping there's gonna be a great point break on this island somewhere and I can while away my days.
Presenter asks
8:44You are the youngest of five children – what impact did that have on your character?
Oh well, I would say that I had to fight hard for what I could get. They would sometimes say that I was a spoiled, overindulged little brat … I think particularly when I was younger I had pretty sharp elbows and was pretty intent on getting what I wanted, getting my own way and … you know, it's something that I probably regret a little bit, yeah.
Presenter asks
10:17How aware were you and the rest of the family of the precarious nature of the farm business when you were growing up?
We were made very aware from an early age and my father didn't spare us any of the details of his bank balance and he was constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. Partly because … he didn't actually have much practical experience himself, so there was a lot of learning going on. But partly he was just sort of pig-headed and stubborn and needed to do everything his own way.
Presenter asks
21:21When you worked in Manhattan as a management consultant, you've since called it 'stimulating but morally bankrupt'. What was the problem?
I don't know whether management consultants still do the same thing, but the worst of it was you often would get … you'd go interviewing … the competitors of the company that you were working for. And it was viewed as perfectly acceptable to go and lie about why you were there … I particularly remember interviewing someone and him asking to my face, 'You're not doing this for such and such a company?' And I was. And at that point I was in too deep and I just carried on lying. And it was just awful. … And the bizarre thing around it, this was the 80s. You know, greed was good. And that's what everyone around me was doing. But I just couldn't do it in the end. And I rang up the office in London and said, 'I resign.' And they said, 'We're going to chuck the keys in the river' … Which is what I did. … I did literally chuck the keys in the river, yeah.
Presenter asks
30:31What do your children say about your decision to sell 74% of Riverford to your employees?
Well, I think it's greatly to my children's credit that they have been largely supportive. … I think wealth can be really horrible in the way it divides people. And I think to lumber kids with a million quid or two million quid is a millstone round their neck on the whole. And I think they are very capable and willing to make their own way in the world and that's what I'd like them to do.
“I'm quite an introverted person and being on my own in the fields with my vegetables, that's what kind of recharges me.”
“You know, I think it's very important to look after yourself and kind of refuel yourself. And for me, I'm quite an introverted person and being on my own in the fields with my vegetables, that's what kind of recharges me.”
“We don't fly [anything] … I would say the two absolute insanities in fresh produce if you want to reduce the environmental footprint of what you eat. Don't eat anything that's been on an aeroplane and don't eat anything produced in a heated greenhouse.”
“I just found myself out in the field with a plow. That's how I remember it. I don't remember planning it or anything. Actually, I can remember being conscious that I needed to start my own business because I couldn't work for anyone else. By then, I'd realised I was too pig-headed and independent to ever [work for someone else]. I think I was probably unemployable at that stage.”
“I mean, most entrepreneurs, they definitely have a few nuts loose somewhere and are often driven by a … I don't know a need for approval or something or other and they often are quite borderline aggressive in pushing other people aside and I know that I have a lot of those traits and I do need to keep an eye on them.”