The road (A442) to Apley Farm Shop has reopened

I’ve got lots of bits of news (a picnic-style blog) from this week at Apley Farm Shop. Most importantly, the road (A442) to Apley Farm Shop has reopened – hoorah !

Tomorrow, 11-3pm, the Big Fish Company will be offering free tasters on the farm shop floor. We eat loads of their fish at home & love it. Really tasty & easy to cook.

Next Saturday 18 March, Midlands Thai Chef of the Year Suree Coates will hold her first Thai Cookery Masterclass at Apley Farm Shop, 10:30-12:30pm. Click HERE to book. Next classes are 13 May & 17 June.

It’s been National Pie Week this week for which Bob has produced some new pies:

1. Steak & ale pie
2. Beef mince & onion pie
3. Chicken curry pie
4. Ham chicken & mushroom pie

£2.25 each or three for £5.00

And especially for National Butchers’ Week next week, he will be offering:

• Pork chops £1.99 per lb
• Beef mince £1.99 per lb

Two more foodie weeks coming up are: National Poultry Week w/c 19 March & English Wine Week 27 May.

New products in this week (great ingredients for baking in the Apley Bake Off) are:

• Apley handmade hot cross buns – £1.97
• Prunes £1.24 per 100g
• Apricots £1.76 per 100g
• Raisins – 69p per 100g

We’ve had a few large corporate groups at the farm shop this week including a group of 36 Swedish arable farmers for an AHDB meeting (Agricultural & Horticultural Development Board), as Apley is an AHDB monitor farm. We also had a corporate team building who had a cheese course, lunch & pottery painting at Paint & Create. I hope to see the photos soon. Just had some lovely feedback via Twitter: @ApleyFarmShop thank you for a wonderful lunch!  We have rented our event field via the Hire a Field website for another big corporate day in June.

Eva ran a Mothers’ Day card making club in Pigg’s Playbarn on 6 March & will do so again on 14 & 22 March, so beautiful handmade cards will be ready for Sunday 26 March. £3.50 gives you half price entry into the playbarn.

The Apley Bakery is trialling transparent plastic (which can be recycled) boxes so that customers can see more easily the gorgeous cakes inside .. & their hot cross buns are now on sale. The updated Apley Bakery web page showcases all they do.

Good news: We’re delighted to say our Corn Loft Conference Room bookings are increasing every month.
Bad news: The living wage increases & food cost inflation (eg coffee up 12%) is causing us to increase some of our prices. More on that soon.

And finally, Gavin’s just had a letter out of the blue from Hamilton Park racing in Motherwell (his family seat is Dalzell Castle near Motherwell – he is Lord Hamilton of Dalzell – used to be “of Dalzell & Orbiston”). The 2nd baron Hamilton was his Great Great Uncle Gavin who re-established the race course in 1926 with a Colonel T Robertson-Aikman & Sir Loftus Bates (had to share that great name!) after it had been closed for 19 years. The Lord Hamilton of Dalzell Memorial Cup will be presented this August with an impressive £25k of prize money.