A chat with Richard Jones and Sarah Mackenzie of the Farmer Jones Academy, a community interest company which is on a mission to inspire young people into careers by delivering training and development courses in farming, food and drink, personal development and business skills.
“People had lost this connection between the food on the shelf and where it had come from. So people would go into the supermarket, pick a pack off the shelf, not have a clue what was in it, whether it was any good for them, it just looked all right. And they would take it home and eat it.” — Richard Jones, Farmer Jones Academy
Podcast excerpts. Interview by Drew Hendry
Drew: The title of this podcast episode is Good Business Nurturing the Next Generation. Tell us a bit about the setup of Farmer Jones Academy. What’s the driving force behind the business model as well?
Sarah: Working with [local food producers] and knowing the issues that they were experiencing — a lot of it came from the skill gaps that were present in the sector. And that was actually hindering their ability to grow. I think from that we could see a gap in education. With the producers at the later stage, we had to really delve deeper and start educating young people and getting them excited about their food from a very early age. And I think making that accessible to everyone, especially in rural locations where accessibility to courses can be difficult. So, I think we really wanted to make sure that everybody had access to education and food and drink and an understanding where their food comes from.
Drew: It’s clearly been a challenging journey to get here. What’s been the biggest challenge or obstacle you’ve had to overcome?
Richard: On the back of working with Nairn Academy, where we developed and funded our own first masterclass, Skills Development Scotland spotted that and came to us and said, would you like to formalize this with us and offered us a contract with food and drink technologies. Which is basically years, five and six in schools. And the idea is that they get a full background and everything from the beginning of the food journey, right through to serving it up on a plate or taking it into a supermarket. The business has developed on the back of that.
Drew: Tell us something that people wouldn’t necessarily know about the company.
Sarah: I think for a start a lot of people don’t actually realize that we’re a not-for-profit organisation. A lot of people don’t get the social enterprise, a lot of people either assume a sort of charity or they assume you’re a private business entity. Actually we do both, we run a business and we make profit.
We invest it then to help disadvantaged young people. I feel like a lot of people don’t actually realize that even with the cafe we quite often have to say it’s actually a training cafe and then everybody goes “So what does that mean?” It’s giving young people that real life experience and learning on the job which I think is really important from a vocational point of view. But also, I think for us, it’s putting our money where our mouth is: we are trying to inspire a generation and say you could start up your own business in food and drink. We can actually say, well, we’re doing it. And we can do it with them. And I think that’s a really nice thing to have.
Listen to the full Video Podcast to learn more about Farmer Jones Academy and the passion for what they do.