When the Coronavirus pandemic shifted the nation’s food buying habits, Andrew and Mair Duggan saw it as an opportunity to add value to beef from their suckler herd, establishing direct meat sales as a diversification enterprise on their Powys hill farm.
Since securing 17 meat box orders in December 2020, the Duggans have not only developed that business to include pork and lamb, but have grown their alternative income stream by opening a farm shop and pop-up tearoom at Cilmaenowydd, the family’s holding at Llandegley near Llandrindod Wells.
Establishing the business
As a secondary school cookery teacher and passionate foodie, for Mair establishing a business where she could showcase produce fresh from the farm held great appeal.
Before the first lockdowns in 2020 she had been working as a supply teacher but the closure of schools meant there was no demand for her services.
With more time on her hands, she posted videos and photographs on social media of activities on the farm that showed the public how their food was produced and the important work farmers were doing to feed the nation during the pandemic.
Afternoon tea boxes
These were popular and, with a growing consumer appetite to buy fresher produce that supported local farmers and reduced food miles, she registered as a food business and started selling afternoon tea boxes packed with local bread, Welsh butter, homemade cakes and quiches and other treats.
Meat box deliveries followed and, with good demand for those, Mair launched a pop-up shop – in the reception area of a garage in the village, “a good location in the heart of the village’’, she says.
Sales were however limited to the stock she could store in thermal boxes, a source of frustration when demand existed for more.
Opening a farm shop
Opening a farm shop was a logical next step and that is what she did, bringing her customers to the farm where they could not only stock up but see the animals and the day-to-day activities on the farm.
The sales it generated fuelled Mair’s industrious personality to broaden the offering by opening a pop-up tearoom selling her homemade cakes and sausage rolls.
She currently opens this just once a month, on a Saturday, because of family commitments – she and Andrew have three children, Annie, 12, nine-year-old Isaac, and Seth, 7.
Demand is there though as a recent customer survey showed big support for more Saturday openings.
Despite its obvious success, Mair admits she still finds it daunting but her approach is to provide a menu of choices that she would pick out if she was the customer.
“I like good coffee and good cakes and a nice environment so I stick with that formula, I reason that if I like those things other people will too.’’
Research
It is not all work and no play though as she likes to research what other tearooms and farm shops offer.
“I visit lots of these for ideas although the children get a bit fed up of me traipsing them around!’’ she laughs.
“The great thing about having a small business that you run yourself is that you can decide what goes on the menu, what is fresh and what will sell well that week.’’
As well as the food, the surrounding environment forms a big part of the tearoom’s appeal.
“I think a place to eat has to be pleasant, to have a lovely feel about it, and that is represented in the food we sell too,’’ says Mair.
“People enjoy this space, we have double doors that open out onto a green hill where they can see the sheep grazing and we often have red kites flying around too.’’
Mair has built up a strong following in her social media feed, farmgate2kitchenplate, for her recipe ideas, some that she has developed and others inherited, like the one for her grandmother’s fruitcake.
Her mother, Lynn, often suggests recipes ideas to trial too as she is a keen cook – she recently purchased a mobile hot food outlet which she operates in Trecastle, using the farm’s produce including burgers and also eggs from its free range flock.
The farming enterprise
The 650-acre farm business has multiple enterprises and that provides a broad range of products for the direct sales businesses.
The 55-cow suckler herd is made up of Salers and Shorthorns with Charolais and Shorthorn bulls used for breeding.
“The Shorthorn produces very good tasting beef so we bought six from a local farmer and have since bought a bull,’’ Mair explains.
There is a breeding flock of 600 Welsh hill ewes and 1,000 mule ewes, a breeding Hampshire sow producing around 12 piglets a year, and a flock of 18,000 Lohmann Brown hens, with their eggs supplied to Aberdare-based Ellis Eggs.
Although Mair is responsible for the farm shop and pop-up tearoom, all the family pitch in.
The children are drafted in to stamp the brand logo on paper bags and Mair's father-in-law never misses an opportunity to drum up more business.
“Andrew’s parents, John and Rhian, have been very supportive, when John is out on the quad and he sees walkers he will suggest that they visit me at the farm shop, pointing them in my direction,’’ says Mair.
Unbelievably, until April 2025, Mair was also still teaching, covering a maternity leave post in the cookery department at Llandrindod Wells High School.
It was a challenge juggling that with her business and family so when that job ended she stepped back from more regular teaching, although she still fills in as a supply teacher from time to time.
“I felt like I wasn’t giving enough attention to everything, I can’t do things half-heartedly so apart from supply teaching, which is nice and easy ‘pick-up’ work, it isn’t the right time to go back and commit to teaching,’’ she says.
Mair does still have pupils of sorts though as she is now running cookery demonstrations, with keen interest from the Women’s Institute.
Introducing a loyalty card, to reward regular customers, is another new initiative with a free hot drink on the 10th purchase and a stamp on each meat sale over £10, allowing a 10% discount on the ninth shop.
“If customers are willing to make the trek to us here in the hills, I feel like they deserve to have a little treat,’’ says Mair.