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Our name, ‘Square Mile Farms’, is quite deliberate and captures a lot of what we’re about. So in this post we thought we might share why we chose that name.
There are three reasons really:
1. A square mile, reflects how close we want to be to our customers. Literally. Our aim is to put our farms in the centre of urban communities and serve customers within a square mile. Serving customers that are so close means that food miles are almost eliminated as delivery from farm to customer can be done on foot, which is great for the environment. It also means it is easier to connect face-to-face with our customers and means our farms will always be easily accessible and form a visible part of the local community.
2. The Square Mile is also the name of the financial district in our home city of London. For us this is about understanding that the most important thing in farming - traditional or otherwise - is capital. And where is the capital of capital? The Square Mile. The Square Mile is also famous for its financial innovation; our name also reflects the fact that our model allows us to be innovative in how capital is raised and deployed. Our business model challenges the preconception that farming needs to be capital intensive; we believe that by incrementally building a network of smaller footprint farms, but that utilise vertical space, we can be much more capital effective.
3. Finally, our name reflects our ambition to do the unexpected. If someone were to ask the average Londoner today where they’d least expect to see a farm in the UK (maybe even Europe), there are pretty good odds they’d say somewhere like “the Square Mile”. And they’d probably be right. A farm in-and-amongst the concrete jungle is (for the time being) rather unexpected vs our traditional notions of a ‘farm’. But we’re on a mission to change that perception…and we are planning to put a farm in the Square Mile very soon.
We love having visitors, so come and have a tour of the farm. Just click on this link and register for a visit.
We are also running a series of events, seminars and workshops at our home in Paddington focused on the themes of food, nutrition and sustainability. Register here to be kept up to date with these, or visit our events page here.
Square Mile Farms bring vertical, urban farming to city dwellers in their homes and in the workplace. We aim to bring people closer to food production and help to create a culture of healthy, sustainable living. Find out more about our offering and get in touch here with any queries. Sign up to our newsletter for tips on a healthy lifestyle and a round-up of relevant news. You can also follow us on social media to stay up to date with our journey, find us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Why not join our online Urban Growing Community for advice on growing at home and much more!