This month Nigel Akehurst visits Brightleigh Farm, near Redhill in Surrey, to meet regenerative livestock farmers Nigel and Penny Franklin, along with Penny’s daughter Ellie. Together they rear 100% pasture-fed beef, free range pigs and poultry, selling their produce direct to customers.

I found myself driving up the A22 on an overcast damp morning. Turning off at Newchapel I followed the route to Outwood, spotting the large signage for Brightleigh Farm Shop on my left. Driving up the concrete track, I parked in front of their pop-up farm shop and was warmly welcomed by Penny and Nigel.

First generation farmer

Penny’s family has farmed at Brightleigh Farm since 1959, when her father, Jim Brunton – then a young man from a non-farming background – used a modest inheritance from his late father to put down a deposit on the 52-hectare farm.

With his mother Miriam in tow, he arrived at Brightleigh Farm ready to start a new life.

“He started with just eight Ayrshire cows,” Penny recalled. “They were brought down from Scotland by a local haulier, Bowers & Sons of Turners Hill” who they still use to this day. “My father poured all his energy into building the herd and modernising the old sheds.”

Over the next few decades, Penny’s father expanded the herd to 100 cattle, switching to British Friesians in the 1970s because of their robust constitution and lower input requirements.

It was an era shaped by stable milk prices under the Milk Marketing Board (MMB), and many smaller farms thrived. By the time Penny was 12, she was milking cows in a simple, six-abreast parlour, working alongside her father. “It was all I knew, and I loved it,” she recalled. “I had two brothers, but neither of them took to it the way I did.”

The end of an era

The 1990s brought upheaval. After the MMB dissolved, supermarket power drove milk prices down. By 1999, the family made the difficult decision to sell the dairy herd altogether. “It was heartbreaking,” Penny admitted. “My father was 67, and running a dairy was all he’d ever known. The milk quota we’d held onto had plummeted in value. The economics simply didn’t stack up any more.”

In place of milking, they tried a brief foray into small-scale suckler beef production, initially rearing some of their own dairy-cross heifers. Then came the foot and mouth outbreak of 2001, which cancelled cattle markets and scuppered any ideas of a swift dairy comeback.

With her father’s health declining, he put the farm into a Countryside Stewardship scheme, letting sections of the farm ‘rewild’ somewhat. When he passed away in 2009, Penny found herself at a crossroads; either help her mum keep the farm afloat or watch it be sold. For her, the choice was obvious. Giving up on farming wasn’t an option.

Reinventing the family farm and moving to holistic grazing

For several years Penny tried pedigree Hereford bulls, but she found it hard to gain a foothold in the market. She was “practically giving the bulls away,” as she put it, just to gain recognition.

In 2014, she discovered the Pasture for Life Association (PFLA) at the Oxford Real Farming Conference. Intrigued by 100% grass-fed beef, despite local scepticism, she began trialing small groups of Angus-Hereford crosses (‘black baldies’). They thrived on heavier clay soils using a low-input approach she’d learned from her father. “It felt like everything clicked at that point,” she told me.

When I asked about their grazing methods, Penny grew animated. “We used to set-stock everything,” she explained. This left large swathes of the farm unoccupied, particularly areas earmarked for silage. One unwelcome side effect was the spread of Yorkshire fog, which thrived in the under-grazed areas. Conventional advisors told Penny the only solution was spraying off and reseeding, an enormous expense for a small family farm.

Penny came across holistic management and adaptive rotational grazing through the PFLA networks and attended a workshop run by Regenerative Agriculture UK. Other local farmers helped encourage her, too, in particular David Cornforth and Fergus Henderson (see the July 2021 edition of South East Farmer). “They’d talk about trampling the grass, about moving cattle quickly, and all these ideas that went against how I had grazed for years,” she recalled. “But I saw the evidence on their farms, so we gave it a go.”

Little by little, she raised the stocking densities, moving the animals more frequently. Trampling older stems into the soil helped suppress less desirable species like Yorkshire fog while giving beneficial grasses a competitive edge. The first time she trampled the tall grass, it felt almost wrong, she said. However, seeing the resulting boost in soil health and pasture diversity soon turned her into a firm believer. “I’m always learning,” she added. “Each season, we tweak the rotation, see how the land responds. It’s never static.”

Ellie said going 100% grass-fed was a real turning point for the farm and helped cement her interest. After a stint off-farm as a professional jockey for a few years, and three months working on a ranch in Montana last summer, she returned home to help out and see if they could make it work long term. “I love the animals and have always admired mum’s determination, and I wanted to be part of it,” she added.

Nigel, Penny’s second husband, who she met in 2017 is now a partner in the farm, helps bring a different skillset after working in event branding for over 30 years. Chatting to him later, he explained that he immediately saw the potential of what Penny had built with the 100% grass-fed beef, adding they just needed to package it properly to appeal to butchers, farm shops and the direct-to-consumer market.

Selling direct

In 2018, Penny took a group of store cattle to auction at Thame, only to receive dismal prices that barely covered her costs. It was the final straw, she said, and that same afternoon she rang a neighbour who had previously offered her a disused chiller. It was the start of a new chapter.

They started by finishing one or two cattle at a time, using a local abattoir and butcher to cut up the meat into mixed boxes to sell to friends and local families. Demand grew steadily, thanks to word-of-mouth praise for the flavour and texture of Brightleigh’s slow-grown, purely grass-fed beef.

Then in early 2020, just before the pandemic, they decided to open a ‘pop-up shop’ in an old store shed at the farm. The first time they opened the doors, it was more of an experiment than a grand launch. “We figured we’d sell some frozen stock, get the locals familiar with our setup,” Penny recalled. “Then lockdown hit, and suddenly locals were seeking out local produce like never before. People literally queued down our drive. We couldn’t believe it.

Since then, the farm shop has become a permanent Saturday fixture, opening from 9am to 3pm. It’s a simple setup, with a small farm stand display at the front with a chiller for fresh cuts, and a freezer for surplus at the back. They bring in some extra items from local partners – honey, jams or cheese – partly to offer variety and partly to support other small producers. “We realised consistency was crucial,” Penny said. “If customers know we’re open every Saturday, they’ll plan their weekly shop around it.”

Enterprise stacking – pigs, poultry, and eggs

Today, Brightleigh farm stands as an inspiring model of how small family farms can expand by stacking enterprises. In addition to beef, the team raises free-range pigs, often Tamworth and Mangalitsa crosses, on a soy-free diet.

“The pigs do a fabulous job on the pasture, often digging out persistent thistles and opening up the seed bank,” Penny explained, “but they’ll quickly make a mess if we don’t rotate them.” In winter, the pigs move into sheltered areas in the barns on straw bedding or an area of woodland for protection from the elements.

Meat chickens arrived on the scene in 2020 after a visit to Richard Keen at Etherley Farm (see August 2021 edition of
South East Farmer). They buy day-old Hubbard chicks, raise them under heat lamps and then move them onto grass in mobile pens once they’re feathered up.

As with the pigs, the birds are raised on a soy-free diet, augmented by whatever insects and greenery they can forage. By rotating them across the fields weekly, the Brightleigh team reduces disease pressure and adds fertility back to the land. Before long, word got out about their delicious, slow-grown birds, and they keep having to increase production to meet demand.

Layers, too, are an integral part of the enterprise. “We started with a small flock of about 50,” Ellie said, “and now we have nearly 200. Demand for soy-free, free-range eggs is surprisingly strong.”

Though laying drops in winter, the Saturday shop faithful often arrives early to bag a couple of dozen. “No matter what other cuts we have, eggs are always the first to go,” she laughed.

Farmer’ markets and spreading the word

To supplement shop sales and build brand recognition, the team loads up a van with sausages, fresh cuts, and eggs to sell at several farmers’ markets in towns like Ripley, Farnham, Guildford and Earlswood (they now do five markets in total). “Farmers’ markets can be hit or miss,” Penny concedes, “but they’re brilliant for advertising. People taste our beefburgers or sausages and then visit our farm shop the next weekend.”

The markets also allow them to gauge customer feedback in real time. Some customers love a thick cap of yellow fat on a sirloin, while others prefer a leaner cut. By selling direct, Penny says, they can celebrate those differences instead of conforming to a strict carcass specification for a single buyer.

“We might have a big-framed older animal that produces beautiful, marbled meat, but it doesn’t meet the supermarket’s exact fat class. That’s no problem for our customers – they love the flavour of those more mature animals.”

Building a farm community

Helping supplement their farm income is a handful of micro-enterprises housed in some of the old dairy infrastructure. These include a pottery studio that offers weekend classes, a personal training gym in another corner and a small gin distillery workshop experimenting with botanical spirits.

They also rent out a few containers for storage and space for old military vehicles. Penny explained that while beef, pork, poultry and eggs remains the ‘heart’ of the operation, these diversified lets provide a welcome, steady income stream.

“It’s become a wonderful community,” Ellie said. “Customers come to the shop, see someone throwing clay at the pottery wheel, or watch the personal trainer leading a small group class in the converted barn. It gives the place so much life.” The synergy extends to events; sometimes they will host a farm open day with tours of the cattle out in the fields, pig pens and the potter’s studio, culminating in a barbecue featuring the farm’s own beef and sausages.

Challenges: abattoirs and inheritance tax

Like many independent livestock producers, the team at Brightleigh faces the persistent worry of abattoir closures. They currently use Downland Traditional Meats in Henfield, about 40 minutes away; a manageable distance. But with small local abattoirs shutting down across the country, they wonder if one day they will have to send their animals on a longer, more stressful journey.

“You can’t run a direct farm business if you can’t get your animals slaughtered humanely and efficiently,” Penny sighed. If Henfield closes, their next option might be hours away, which raises transport costs, animal welfare concerns and logistical headaches.

Another looming issue is inheritance tax. Penny’s mother Anne, now 84, still legally owns the farm. Proposed changes that might remove certain agricultural property reliefs threaten to saddle the family with a hefty tax bill when she passes.

“We can’t just conjure up that sort of money,” Penny said, frustration evident in her voice. “We’d have to sell land, or give up a big chunk of the business. That undermines all the work we’ve done to improve the soil and the herd genetics.”

Nevertheless, the team is pressing on, determined to find solutions. “We may not have big corporate backing,” they said, “but we’ve built direct relationships with our customers, and that’s powerful. People care about keeping small, sustainable farms alive.”

Farm tour

As we headed out to see some of the animals, Penny explained that they try to keep their cattle out on pasture for as long as possible by bale grazing, but the persistent wet weather in December meant they had to bring them in to prevent too much damage to their heavy clay soils.

Arriving at their main cattle shed, Penny and Ellie introduced me to some of their Mangalitsa cross pigs. Next door the cows and calves looked very content on a bed of fresh straw and get a diet of silage down a central passage.

We stop so I can take a few pictures of the cows and Penny and Ellie in front of their cabless Massey Ferguson tractor and McHale feeder. We then continue through to the other side of the yard, where they keep their silage and straw bales, stacked in a pyramid on pallets covered with a sheet from Toptex.

In the yard was a ’23 plate New Holland loader tractor, their main work horse. In the past they used to do all their own field work, but now just do their own bale wrapping and bale carting, explained Penny, who said they had built a good relationship with a local farmer who carried out all their silaging and hay making.

Continuing our tour, Penny and Ellie showed me another group of pigs housed in a white pig tent, which they bought secondhand. Next up were their egg layers, a mixture of white and brown hens housed in another white tent surrounded by Heras fencing and protected from predators by Fusco, one of the two large Maremma guard dogs which live with the chickens day and night.

When the cattle are out, the free-range chickens follow the rotation, picking over and spreading the dung. Penny moves the cattle twice daily using KiwiTech kit on their quad bike, and said setting up and taking down fences took no time at all.

Over the years, she has noticed significant improvements to their soils and the amount of grass they are able to grow, adding that recent tests revealed that some of their fields showed soil organic matter of over 10%. Unfortunately, she didn’t do any baseline tests before they started rotationally grazing, but she is certain they must have risen dramatically since set stocking.

Rural prosperity funding and a new farm shop

Heading back to the main courtyard, we pass some of their commercial lets and arrive back where we started. Penny and Ellie show me their old pop-up shop. It’s a space that has served them well over the past five years, they say, but they are excited to open their new shop housed in a larger space next door.

Looking around, I notice the shop is already kitted out with shiny chillers and lots of stainless-steel surfaces. Penny explained it was Nigel’s baby and was made possible by a small family inheritance and match funding from the Rural Prosperity Fund.

After the bifold doors have been fitted, they open to the public on 1 February and hope their investment will help take sales to the next stage. Currently, their 40-cow beef enterprise seems about the right size to sustain two to three animals a month through the shop – sometimes four in peak season. That’s supplemented by a steady turnover of pigs (averaging four per month) and a rolling schedule of meat-chicken batches of 100 to 200 birds. The synergy between farm shop and farmers’ markets ensures brisk, year-round trade.

Ellie, for her part, sees a future where Brightleigh Farm becomes even more of a local hub, hosting more open days, bringing in more school visits and perhaps launching educational workshops on rotational grazing or soy-free poultry rearing.

“We’ve gained so much from visiting other farms, seeing what they do,” she said. “It feels natural to want to share our journey, too.”

Nigel, ever the brand strategist, points out that “knowing your farmer” has never been more valued by consumers. “We highlight the story of each animal; where it was born, how it was raised, which field it grazed. People love that transparency. It’s part of the reason they drive out on a Saturday morning to buy direct from us.”

Carnivore diet, books and looking ahead

With my visit coming to an end, Nigel joins us outside the old pop-up shop. The conversation turned to health, the carnivore diet and regenerative farming books. Nigel said they had noticed a growing trend of customers regularly buying large quantities of meat and, after chatting to them, found out most were on the carnivore diet due to various health issues. After doing some research themselves, they decided to give it a go and haven’t looked back. They now eat only twice a day, have lost weight and feel healthier.

On the topic of regenerative farming books, Nigel suggested checking out A Bold Return to Giving a Dam, written by American regenerative rancher Will Harris. “It’s the best book,” he said.

Grabbing a final portrait of the three of them in front of the farm signage, I asked if they had any advice for other farmers. “You have to stay nimble,” Penny replied. “If something’s not working, like selling stores at a poor price, you do something else. The market can shift, but people will always value high-welfare, local food.”

Farm Facts

  • 60 hectares, comprised of 52 ha permanent pasture and eight ha woodland
  • 100% grass-fed Pasture For Life-certified herd of 40 suckler cows, mainly Hereford and Angus crosses (black baldies) plus followers
  • Small herd of pigs to produce Tamworth and Mangalitsa crosses to fatten (average four per month through the shop and farmers’ markets)
  • Use only soy-free feed for their pigs and chickens
  • Flock of 200 egg layers (mix of brown and white hens)
  • Rear batches of 100 to 150 Hubbard broiler chickens through the warmer months on pasture
  • Two Maremma livestock guardian dogs (Fusco and Bella) to protect their chickens from predators
  • Opened a pop-up farm shop in February 2020 and now open every Saturday from 9am to 3pm, selling between two and three bodies of beef per month.
  • Sell at five farmers’ markets per month
  • Received Rural Prosperity match funding last year to convert an existing farm building into a larger farm shop and kit it out with new equipment (chillers, freezers etc.) which is due to open on 1 February 2025
  • A few commercial lets, including a gin distillery, personal trainer, pottery studio and container units
  • SFI agreement due to start in 2025 (awaiting confirmation).

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