Customer loyalty helps to keep the profits healthy at Riverford

The family-owned firm, whose pre-tax profits for the previous year were £508,000, saw its annual retail turnover rise by six per cent to £41.8m for the year to the end of April 2012.

Riverford supplies customers across the North from Home Farm at Newby Wiske, Northallerton, supported by several growers and producers in Yorkshire and the North East.

Peter Richardson, who farms at Riverford on Home Farm, said: “We have always stuck to our guns, running an ethical business that looks after its suppliers and delivers organic produce fresh to our customers. This uncompromising stance on both ethics and quality is something that our customers appreciate; over half of our sales come from people who have been shopping with us for over five years.

“Their loyalty is invaluable to us and we keep growing and delivering them produce packed with flavour.”

The organic range that Riverford delivers to more than 40,000 customers each week from Home Farm, its other regional farms and its farm kitchen now includes vegetables, fruit, dairy products, meat, bread and a baked range.

There are now four Riverford sister farms in the UK: the original Wash Farm in Devon; Sacrewell Farm in Cambridgeshire; Home Farm in North Yorkshire and Upper Norton Farm in Hampshire. Riverford began in Devon in 1987, delivering organic vegetables to 30 local homes. It then teamed up with sister farms, growing and delivering to their local areas.