The Farmers Mart Feb/Mar 2016 - Issue 44 | Page 44

Park Farm Pleased to be associated with Tori and Ben Stanley of Park Farm Email us at [email protected] if you'd like to stock our chicken, pork or both! Find your local stockist via our website www.packingtonfreerange.co.uk/where-to-buy/ Tel: [phone] | Fax: [phone] | [email protected] Packington Free Range, Blakenhall Park, Barton-under-Needwood, Staffordshire, DE13 8AJ Independent British Millers Suppliers of high quality animal feed since 1675! - Superior conventional compoundS - HigH performance dairy nutrition - SpecialiSt SHeep, beef and youngStock dietS - SpecialiSt organic mill - producing quality - compoundS and mealS Huge variety of ingredientS unique & extenSive blendS range family owned britiSH company HJ Lea Oakes Ltd., Aston Mill, Aston, Nr. Nantwich, Cheshire. CW5 8DH. T: 01270 782222 www.hjlea.com Seizing the opporunities pays off for Ben and Tori »»WITHIN THE BEAUTIFUL Melbourne estate in the heart of Derbyshire and not far from Donington Park lies Park Farm, home to Ben and Tori Stanley and latest chirpy addition, young Herbert. Ian Wilkinson went along to meet the team. Tori and Ben have been together for 12 years having first met at the Royal Show where both their families were stewards - they married in 2010. Ben’s family have been farming ‘supply wholesale meat to the trade and also supply full carcasses as well as making their own sausages and burgers’ 44 Feb/Mar 2016 www.farmers-mart.co.uk since 1807 so farming is in Ben’s blood. Ben could have stayed on the family farm with parents, Pat and John Stanley who have the award winning Blackbrook Longhorns, but he really wanted to go it alone and also felt he fancied his own challenge. So when a short lease on Woodhouse Farm, Diseworth, became available in 2010 Ben and Tori jumped at the chance. But starting from scratch as tenanted farmers is not easy financially or in any other way, so initially Tori kept her job as marketing manager for BMW where she had been for six years. They began with Longhorns supplying local farmers’ markets. When the recession hit the markets they then took the bold step to join a London