About Barfoots of Botley
Barefoot of Botley Ltd is a British company that was started in 1976 on 21 acres of tended land by Peter Barfoot.
Peter still runs the business today, but it has expanded to supply year round from its own farms and partner farms in 28 countries around the world. Barfoots have proudly been supplying Waitrose for over 15 years producing a range of vegetable products, such as Sweetcorn, Asparagus, Beans, Peas, Squash, Courgettes, Rhubarb, Tenderstem broccoli as well as a range of organic products.
Barfoots has always had very strong sustainability credentials and has made significant investments in this area. In 2010 Barfoots completed commissioning of its onsite AD plant. This plant takes all the green waste (e.g Sweetcorn husk) produced by the factory process and produces enough electricity to power all of its operations and export two-thirds to the national grid. The digestate is used to replace much of the fertiliser used on the farm, thus completing a closed loop. Barfoots has continued to invest in green Technology such as an electric pool car fleet, LED lighting and highly efficient compressors.
In December 2013 Barfoots opened its second AD plant. This plant takes food waste from stores, including Waitrose, de-packages it and converts to electricity.
Research and development programme is very strong across the Barfoots business. Their current farming research priorities lie in the following areas:
- Product quality and shelf life extension
- Precision farming
- Farm Biodiversity
- Energy Reduction
- Input reduction (Pesticide, fertiliser etc)
- Soil management
In July 2014, Waitrose awarded Barfoots with Demonstration farm status for Energy.
