The Farm Shop Guide, a new foodie travel guide, will launch on 21 October 2024. It's from Printslinger, the independent publisher behind The Extra Mile (Delicious Alternatives to Motorway Services), and The Coastal Café Guide, both Amazon #1 bestsellers in 2024.  

Founder of Riverford Organic and veg box pioneer, Guy Singh-Watson, said, “Proper farm shops – ones that actually grow, rear, or make most of their own produce with love, attention to detail, and a genuine connection to the land – are a beautiful thing. This book will help you find them.”

Promoting Britain's homegrown food networks, The Farm Shop Guide features 165 independent (and often smaller and family-run) farm shops across England, Scotland, and Wales – along with their first-rate cafés and restaurants.

The guide has everything from shops that drip with awards to muddier, down-to-earth places where the person at the till has just come in from the fields. The guide also promotes 15 food and farming charities to raise awareness of their vital work, and 1% of its sales will go to the Sustainable Food Trust.

Book highlights

• 165 farm shops and their cafés and restaurants
• Seasonal farm events including Easter, Halloween, and Christmas activities
• Info on pick-your-own (PYO) crops, food festivals, and farmers markets
• Icons to help trip-planners, i.e. dog friendly, family friendly, EV charging, parking
• Eight geographic sections, with chapters on Scotland and Wales
• Nine striking full-colour maps
• 15 food-related charities featured, including RSPB Fair to Nature, Nature Friendly Farming, Community Supported Agriculture, and Pasture for Life
• 264 full-colour pages with beautiful photography and maps throughout
• A donation will be made to the Sustainable Food Trust for every book sold.

Get in touch if keen to feature The Farm Shop Guide

• Places with family-friendly farm activities
• Farm shops with electric vehicle (EV) charging for customers
• Halloween event round-ups and pick-your-own pumpkins (PYO)
  A round up of places that offer PYO fruit, vegetables, Christmas trees, sunflowers, and more
• Farms with PYO flower fields - a lovely Mother's Day activity
• Award-winning farm shops (Farm Retail Awards winners and many more)
• Farm shops near motorway junctions to break journeys in rural style
• Farm shops by region: the book has chapters on Scotland; North; Midlands; Wales; East Anglia; South West (North); South West (South); South and South East

Praise for The Farm Shop Guide

The go-to guide for those seeking deliciously fresh local food when on their day trips, holidays and commutes, The Farm Shop Guide will also make everyday eating and food shopping more enjoyable and locally beneficial.  

Helen Browning OBE is an organic farmer, farm shop owner, and CEO of the Soil Association. Helen said, “Nothing beats a good farm shop as a way of getting the freshest food possible, while directly supporting fantastic farmers.”

Jane Gray is Director of Broom House Farm, Durham, which features in the book. Jane said, “So many farm shops like ours are slightly off the beaten track, with holidaymakers stumbling across us just as they're going home. The Farm Shop Guide is going to be such a help.” 

Series edited by Alastair Sawday

Printslinger is an independent publishing company owned by travel publisher Alastair Sawday, an environmental activist and longstanding campaigner for local food, low food miles, and sustainable travel.

Alastair said, “The farm shops, cafés, and restaurants in this book deserve our support and this comprehensive guide will give them a genuine boost. Some of the places are rackety and delightfully chaotic; some are tiny places right on the farm; others have become huge. But they are all fun to shop in – with real human beings on hand to help – and provide an unusual connection with the local land (and my goodness, we need our farms and farmers). Buying and using this book is a great way to support them.”

How to buy The Farm Shop Guide

• ISBN: 9781738481811
• RRP £17.99
• Pre-order on Amazon
• Buy direct from Printslinger

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Information for editors  

For all enquiries, email Kerry O'Neill on hello@theextramile.guide. Contact welcomed from those seeking to write about or review the book, or to be in the next edition of any our books. 

Book industry information  

Printslinger Limited is an independent publishing company owned by Alastair Sawday and run by Kerry O'Neill and Laura Collacott. It is not connected in any business capacity with the travel brand, Sawday's (formerly owned by Alastair Sawday and now majority-owned and run by its own employees). Printslinger books are distributed by Central Books with a catalogue represented by Signature Books. Details for all titles are on Nielsen Book Data. For trade enquiries, please contact Central Books. The Extra Mile and The Coastal Café Guide can be ordered now; The Farm Shop Guide can be pre-ordered now and will be released on 21 October 2024.