Agri-food marketing student opens her own farm shop

Emily McGowan, agri-food marketing student, opened her new venture Millbank Farm Shop in County Down earlier this year. Emily completed her placement at Mudwalls Farm in Warwickshire before returning home to open the shop on June 22. In September, she will return to Harper Adams for her final year of studies.

The experience and knowledge gained from working at Mudwalls have allowed Emily to see what it takes to run a successful farm shop.

Millbank Farm Shop offers a 'greener shopping experience' with a refill and reuse system in place, which is the first of its kind in Northern Ireland. The shop stocks 30 loose products with items ranging from chickpeas to oats. This is in addition to the fresh fruit and vegetables with much of the produce having been grown on the family farm in Killinchy, just 7 miles from the shop.

Emily has always had an input with the farm back at home, including initiating the development of two Moy Park chicken sheds producing high welfare chicken for Waitrose, as well as expanding the commercial ewe flock.

Read the full story here: www.fginsight.com/blogs/young-farmer-focus-emily-mcgowan--i-have-an-endless-desire-to-develop-the-farm?fbclid=IwAR2jAGdXd45FlYdg7Zrwi5l1sWfRRj8skMbfFdRhXg48s4Uk9YJLYnrnmzg

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

Thank you to Rachel from @sustainablefolk for handmaking a beautiful variety of produce bags for our shop. Along with all of her other products these bags are made from recycled materials, encouraging shoppers to lead a more Eco-friendly lifestyle and avoid single-use packaging?? #reusable #sustainableshopping

A post shared by Millbank Farm (@millbankfarm) on Aug 14, 2019 at 7:38am PDT

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

At Millbank Farm we try to do our bit to behave sustainably and reduce our impact on the environment. Our No Waste Station offers a greener shopping experience - giving you a chance to cut the unnecessary plastics out of your weekly shop ? Thanks to Bizerba, we’ve installed Northern Ireland’s first ‘Refill and Reuse’ system with 30 loose products - everything from oats to apricots, sunflower seeds to chickpeas! Bring your own containers, weigh and pay! ? Check out the range when we open on Saturday! #nationalrefillday

A post shared by Millbank Farm (@millbankfarm) on Jun 19, 2019 at 12:04pm PDT

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

Thankful for our little team who is helping bring the @millbankfarm project to life. The one month countdown officially begins?? #local #quality #provenance

A post shared by Emily McGowan (@emilymcgowann) on May 21, 2019 at 11:51pm PDT

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

An amazing wee team???? #dothingsandthingswillhappen

A post shared by Emily McGowan (@emilymcgowann) on Jun 23, 2019 at 4:41am PDT

You can still apply for BSc (Hons) Agri-Food Marketing with Business through clearing. The hotline is open from 9am - 5pm 01952 815000, or visit our clearing page.