What was Richard Branson like as a teenager? Did he have as much self-possession, grasp of detail and entrepreneurial flair as Sixth Former Duncan Turnbull?
This young man started out in business when he was 12, was discussing his future plans over
lunch with Chancellor Gordon Brown when he was 15 and is now, at the ripe old age of 17, about to launch an export crusade during his half term holiday.
Duncan's aim is to crack what is, in his line of business, one of the toughest overseas markets imaginable. Next month he's off to Turin for a week to try to
show the Italians that his Yorkshire sausages and hams are better than theirs. He is attending the Salone del Gusto or Taste Show, an international culinary showcase for niche producers of top-quality food organised by the Piedmont regional government and the SlowFood movement.
As an eye-catching sales angle, Duncan is also offering them the opportunity to adopt one of his pigs. Anyone who signs up can observe its development on a website and through newsletters and then, when the pig's time has come, the adopter will receive some of the good things it has been made into.
Duncan's Adopt-A-Pig scheme is already working over here. Families have travelled for up to 200 miles to share time with their adoptee on a smallholding just north of York. They get to name the pig, watch it grow via a photo gallery on the website – piglet with mum, pig in trough, pig running in the great outdoors.
This really is tracking food from pasture to plate. When the pig is ready for slaughter, the adopter has a choice; hog-roast, lots of pork or all sausages.
For some people the idea appeals but the outcome makes them queasy. "They have rung and said, "Can we just adopt – but we don't want to eat?'" says Duncan. "I've told them 'no'. It's not a sanctuary. It's not a charity. It's a meat business. That's what it's about."
Just at the moment, farming is a business which tends to talk itself down. A general despondency is compounded by the fact that the average farmer is in his late fifties, and young ones are not coming through to take the reins. Duncan Turnbull's presence dispels gloom and seems to offer an alternative in form and style. His spare frame and rangy lope look more suited to the line-up of a rock band. His preferred reading, however, is not Guitar Monthly or even celebrity Heat magazine but Pig World.
Most people of this age probably think that a final year of A-level French, Spanish, Politics and Maths, with ambitions of doing Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxbridge as the next step, is a full-time job and more than enough to be going on with. These youngsters usually escape the clutches of exam pressure now and again by staying out all hours. Duncan, too, has times when he's up at 1am and 4am – not clubbing but breathing life down a plastic tube into the mouths of a litter of his newly-born piglets.
For the interview he wears a shirt with the monogrammed logo of his business, Yorkshire Meats, for which he signs himself Chief Executive Officer. He designed the logo and it has more verve than the often lumpen efforts that advertise this industry. It's also typical of his attention to detail. For the Italy trip he's decided that a better "corporate presence" is required, so there will be a special tie and apron as well. He has also translated the promotional leaflets into French and Spanish. Not Italian. That language seems one of the few things he isn't confident about.
As he discusses business progress and prospects, it sounds as if you are listening to a college project being outlined by a bright student. Except that this is a tried-and-tested business which impressed the DTI sufficiently for them to give him a Government grant of £1,800 to go on the eight-day Turin trip to promote British meat.
Duncan's 98 per cent meat sausages are hand-made and the bacon is home-cured. The pigs are Oxford Sandy and Blacks, one of our most endangered breeds. Inside the barn we hang over a gate to watch two-and-a-half year old Hilda, the original sow of this pedigree herd, and her five boys and three girls born exactly a week before. Hilda thinks it's rude to stare. She hauls herself to her feet, lifts her snout and glares back as she approaches the gate in a "who the hell do you think you are?" manner.
In addition to the pig nut diet, Duncan has done a deal with York Brewery for a supply of malted barley. Outside are a couple of large enclosures with plastic buckets of apples standing ready on a fence. As the apples are scattered on the ground, a bunch of highly- mobile Oxford Sandy and Blacks jostle happily. During their lifetime they have eight times more room than pigs in a more commercial operation. They are allowed to live in a field when their slaughter approaches when they are despatched to Hartleys at Tholthorpe about 15 minutes away.
Duncan started out with ducks. "I bred, fed, reared and dressed them – and got £7 each. It wasn't viable. It was better to do pigs."
A couple of years ago he made the shortlist at the award lunch to choose the top Enterprising Young Brit. This is where he got to discuss what he was doing with Gordon Brown. "I think it went over my head a bit at times."
He can't find any farming history in his family. Most of them seem to have been doctors, including his parents who bought the farm, with 20 acres, 10 years ago and they keep a small herd of Highland cattle. "I got an awful lot of help from mum and dad in the beginning. But it's now entirely mine – I pay for the food, market, sell, do the website. It's legally in my name."
If Duncan gets into university he wants to travel in South America for maybe three months of his gap year. Otherwise he'll be focusing on the pigs. In the longer term he's not so sure. "When university comes along maybe someone would do the physical side – I'd be happy to do the ordering and customer relations. I'm keen to go on. But I can't see it as something I'm going to grow throughout my life.
"While it's a viable business, with the quantity we do, it's never going to be massive. I am passionate about it, it means a lot to me. Without more land it's very hard to make this a sustainable career."
What does he hope to get out of the Turin visit? "There's going to be 150,000 people. There will be a lot to look at. It will definitely be an experience we can learn a great deal from. I think we can also make an impression."
He's probably right.
For more information, seewww.yorkshiremeats.co.uk
ITALIAN JOB
Italy's northern region of Piedmont has over 120,000 farms, 55 per cent of them on marginal land in the hills or mountains. Six years ago, needing new ideas to turns things round, they came up with the Salone del Gusto, or Taste Show, bringing together the pleasures of the table, nature conservation and fair trade.
It is designed to showcase tastes and traditions that had been forgotten or undervalued and supports what is "good, clean and right" – such as natural cultivation, the conservation of local specialities and diversity, and rejects standardisation. It attracts over 140,000 visitors over five days, with 600 exhibitors from 80 nations.
This runs alongside Terra Madre, a trade show for farmers, fishermen, cooks, breeders and academics. Its purpose is to create a network of contacts and connections to help reinforce local, traditional and sustainable local production methods worldwide. It's all about know-how and information exchange, discussing common problems and searching for solutions.
At this global food village, among the thousands competing for the eyes of customers will be growers of Madagascan red rice, makers of Rumanian Brânza de burduf cheese, Sarikey pepper harvesters, Norwegian stockfish producers, and friers of Andean potato chips. It's likely only one will offer an adopt-a-pig scheme.
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