Dear Customer

On behalf of all of the staff at Taverners we would like to wish you a very Happy New Year and a big thank you for all your custom over the last year.

It’s been a busy twelve months. The shop has moved into its new barn, joining up with the Ice Cream Parlour Restaurant, the Kitchen Garden was established, and opened to the public, and a range of hot homemade meals have been introduced in the Ice Cream Parlour.

More improvements are planned this year at Taverners to make your farm visit even better:

· More fresh vegetables from our Kitchen Garden

· New Ice Cream flavours using our own garden fruits

· Farm House cooking in the Ice Cream Restaurant

· Summer Meadow Walk with children’s play, farm animals and natural wildlife

· Indoor soft play for toddler fun what ever the weather!

· Orange Elephant Herd continues to grow!

Finally to help ‘Crunch the Credit Crunch’ in 2009 we will be having a year long promotion on Prime Mince Beef at only £2 per lb to ensure buying straight from the farm gives you the very best value anywhere in Devon!

Happy New Year and we look forward to seeing you in 2009,

Very Best Wishes,

Rob & Helen Taverner

Taverners Farm

January 2009-01-09

The cold winter weather is not all that bad!!!

The cold weather can be a good thing for farmers. It kills lots of pests and bugs that can cause disease and allows the farm crops to have a proper winter break before the vigorous spring growth. The fields are really dry so that compost can be spread to feed the soil.

We have nearly finished calving. It has gone very well with nearly 100 calves healthy and well with many starting to turn orange. Milk production has increased ready for turn out in the spring.

Next blog will be in February – Happy New Year

Rob and Helen

We believe happy cows make happy organic milk and ice cream.

That’s why Rob Taverner has taken part in a new campaign by the Federation of Organic Milk Groups (FOMG) to ensure maximum levels of well-being in every pint of milk.

The campaign called Love OM sees Rob featured with other FOMG farmers practising some specially adapted Tai Chi moves to bring additional spiritual uplift to every pint of organic milk (and orange elephant ice cream) we produce.

You can watch Rob Taverner practising Monday’s Tai Chi move on YouTube above, called Lazily Buttoning Overalls below with 5 easy steps to remember how to do it:

1. Stroke the cow
2. Wave to the neighbour
3. Stop the herd
4. Stand proud

Rob says “We’ve noticed a close link between our own mood and the mood of the herd. By practising these moves, we feel calmer and happier and we think the cows are noticeably happier too. And if the cows are happy, healthy and relaxed they produce wholesome milk.”

The story and pictures have been featured in The Metro, The Times, as well as local newspapers like The Express and Echo and the farmer tai chi moves are also available on YouTube.

Rob says “We have received an overwhelming response to the campaign. Customers at the farm shop and ice cream parlour have been so interested we’re considering doing demonstrations of the moves on a Saturday so they can learn them and increase their own levels of relaxation and well-being too.”

As well as organic, we also think local food is important too. In a recent (as yet unpublished) report made by Ben Bradshaw to the Commons, the Health Minister showed that patients in Cornish hospitals made a faster recovery when offered high quality, locally produced food. (source: The Independent)

Research is also emerging that organic milk can be as much as 50% higher in vitamin E, 75% higher in beta carotene and 2-3 time higher in certain anti-oxidants as well as 60% higher in short chain omega-3 fatty acids. (source: Journal of Dairy Science, 86, 2598-2611)

Come along, say hello and try our Orange Elephant ice cream.

Enjoy burgers made with our own organic South Devon beef and home made sausages made by our butchers.

Let your kids blow off steam on the free bouncy castle, the treat yourselves to an ice cream.

A great afternoon out for all the family - and you can even buy your Sunday roast here…

The bouncy castle is in the courtyard and available every day we’re open, so your children can let off steam before or after tasting our delicious ice-cream!

We also have sandpits for little ones as well as tiny toddler tractors.

Please supervise your children whilst they play.

Use plastic bottles, glue, cardboard boxes to paint stick and create your own recycled orange elephant.

Entries must be in by 22nd March and will be displayed in the farm shop. 

Prizes include 5 Sundaes for the winner and other tasty prizes for runners-up.

Full details are available in the farm shop.

The competition is now closed. Well done to the winners which are on display in the ice cream parlour!

Enjoy a full English with bacon, sausages, fried egg, beans, mushrooms, tomato and toast for £4.95.

Or if you prefer something light and healthy - our fruit smoothies help you make up your 5 a day!

The Glen Ample are on primocanes so will fruit this year with good care and feeding. The Autumn Bliss should fruit later in the year and is, as it’s name suggests, an Autumn fruiting variety.

The blackcurrant cuttings have started to leaf with surprising speed, but the main bushes which we pruned back are a little further behind. They need to throw up new shoots to form a healthy stool for fruiting.

With luck and good weather, we’ll be serving raspberries in the ice-cream parlou later this year.

Our eggs are organically produced and the birds are free range - foraging as they please from dawn until dusk when they roost.

Our prices are competitive too - the large eggs (at the time of writing) are cheaper than you’ll find organic eggs in the supermarkets.