Young entrepreneur's pig-free future

THE Commission for Rural Communities, the advocate for England's rural areas, held a summit in London this week. It brought together the findings of a series of similar meetings with a view to formulating an "agenda for change" to help release the potential of rural economies.

The head of the CRC, Dr Stuart Burgess, reports to the Prime Minister. He talked about "innovation, inspiration, investment and empowerment".

The summit presentation included filmed case studies which featured a dozen successful rural firms from around the country, three of them from Yorkshire – Broughton Hall, Richmond Station and Yorkshire Meats.

The latter is run by Duncan Turnbull who first featured in these pages five years ago.

Duncan was then a fifth- former at St Peter's school in York who came up with an innovative adopt-a-pig scheme. It was such a smart idea for selling rare-breed pork that the story was picked up by news media all round the world.

The attention brought a further boost to an already profitable business and Duncan won the title of Yorkshire Entrepreneur of the Year. But that was then.

When we contacted Duncan in Oxford this week it turns out he is now bent on a new business career which is not rural and has nothing to do with pigs. It won't even be in this country.

He's finishing a degree and his business interests now centre on Morocco (a Muslim country where pork is shunned) and a dilapidated building which he aims to turn into a boutique hotel.

He is still monitoring the progress of 35 pigs he keeps at Shipton, just north of York. But the last of them will be gone by this summer.

The last three years have, he says, been fantastic. He's had his hands full studying politics, philosophy and economics and monitoring his pigs. His slogan was "from pasture to plate, tracking your food every step of the way". The idea attracted 350 "adoptees" and some customers invested in 10 pigs, following them from birth to their destiny as roasting joints, sausages and dry-cured bacon. The final one will be slaughtered in August.

The following month Duncan, 21, is heading for Fes and the hotel he hopes to open for its first guests in 2012. "It couldn't be more different from what I've been doing, but Morocco is a fascinating place full of potential," he says. "People we're talking to are supportive if cautious. We have no experience of the hospitality business but I don't see that as an obstacle. It will just be a different type of project."

But why turn his back on a successful formula in North Yorkshire? It's a question of scale, he says.

Yorkshire Meats has been profitable enough to help him pay his way through university. But even if he wanted to, he doesn't have the land to grow to a size that would make it viable as a full-time business.

Expansion could threaten its niche in the market place. By its very nature customers have been attracted by the operation's small-scale and their personal involvement.

They've been able to buy into individual animals, and their choice of meat cuts, and that almost certainly wouldn't work in a unit with, say, 2,000 pigs.

The company is being wound down because as, Duncan puts it, there'll be nothing to sell: no acreage or infrastructure, no stock and no significant assets other than a good idea based on food provenance.

On the other hand the venture has been hugely profitable in other ways.

"I know all my customers personally and in many cases we've stayed in touch. Through them and other contacts I've made in the business all kinds of doors have opened to me.

"I decided that after university I didn't want to be a pig farmer. I've also had a look at investment banking but felt that wasn't what I wanted to do straight away.

"Then, through my visits to Morocco, we came up with the idea of a boutique hotel. One of the big questions for me is can I translate what I've learned from pigs and marketing them into a different type of business? Why not? I think there will be some transferrable skills, and I've gained insights that can be applied in new ways."

The end of Yorkshire Meats is at least one company closure without human cost of redundancy.

That is if you don't include the managing director's 16-year-old sister who has earned money from feeding the pigs when he's away.

"I don't think she's going to miss all that mud too much."