CRS are proud to have recently completed an extensive refit at Farndon Fields farm shop. Farndon Fields is an award-winning, family run farm shop situated on the edge of the beautiful historic town of Market Harborough.
It has developed since 1983 and today the farm shop showcases the produce grown on the farm, quality meat from local farmers and a large selection of fantastic local and British food that has been hand selected by Kevin, Milly and the team. They strive to provide the community with an environment in which to enjoy the food on offer, be excited by the seasons and experience food that has been grown on their doorstep in Leicestershire.
CRS were employed to help the team at Farndon Fields create a new and enticing delicatessen, food-to-go, cheese and butchery areas, as well as introducing a new fresh fish counter to the Farndon Fields range. The aim of this refit was to improve the customer journey and make the Farndon Fields food experience even better. As part of this, the location of the butchery and delicatessen areas were also moved within the farm shop creating a whole new journey, flow and feel.
Farndon Fields’ success and growth over the past 30 years is down to Kevin and Milly’s continued drive to improve the business and reinvest. This project was highlighted back in early 2017 and planning soon started. The first phase of ideas were created by Milly with her own planning drawings. Plenty of research was undertaken including visits abroad to other food retail businesses and outlets. By the end of 2017 Milly knew what she wanted to create with the help of a professional shop fitting company to bring it to life. CRS was approached in early 2018 and project planning was soon in full swing for a September installation.
When discussing the aesthetics for the new environment, Milly had a clear vision of what she wanted to achieve and, being a creative person, was very hands on and involved in bringing her ideas to fruition through project managing a lot of the build. CRS supported and guided her in what products and lay out could best represent her ideas, within budget, whilst Milly worked on using authentic farm materials to create finishes unique to her own style.
As with any large project, it is vital to have a clear plan from the outset to be able to build in the relevant services from the beginning to support the anticipated equipment and retail activity. Electrics, plumbing and drainage, refrigeration and lighting are all fundamental in ensuring the creative ideas are actually realistic and achievable. With Farndon Fields, we were working within an existing space, but with a relatively blank canvas for the fresh food areas, and were involved from the start which is always an advantage. However, not all projects are this straight forwards as refits in existing or listed buildings have their own individual set of challenges to over come, as well as certain services which are already present but may require updating, replacing, or fixing before they are serviceable.
CRS supplied a variety of different refrigerated and ambient displays to Farndon Fields, and appointed their partners H K Interiors to carry out the required shopfitting works. The specifics of this project were:
- New and refinished refrigerated cabinets to accommodate butchery, fish, cheese and deli items
- “U” shaped Criocabin Enixe refrigerated Deli and cheese counter run
- Glass fronted, Criocabin Genesis refrigerated cheese back wall display behind cheese counter
- Pegboard wall behind deli counter and in cheese display
- Bespoke ambient Deli counter, with granite top, including a till station
- Criocabin Ethos and Encore multi decks for pre packed meats and deli
- Criocabin Enixe butchers serve over counters with front panel graphics and movable cutting boards
- Bespoke cutting block with a front display shelf
- Criocabin wall mounted EPV show unit with glass doors and hanging rail
- Criocabin Genesis, glass fronted back wall fresh meat display chiller – part day store, part dry ager
- Bespoke, shaped fish counter for wet fish on a bed of flaked ice
- Bespoke butchery back bar counter with sink and hand wash
- Back bar for fish with catering sink and hand wash
- Back of house chilled and frozen fish storage
- Undercounter refrigeration units
- Refurbished and refinished existing multi deck displays
- Remote refrigeration engineering
- Aesthetic finishes such as a pegboard wall, cladding, decorating, flooring and ticket holders including recycling materials from the farm such as corrugated iron, wooden boards and even silver birch trees
- Shop fitting labour such as dry lining, drainage and plumbing, flooring and lighting
Completion was in time for Milly to welcome her guests as she hosted a FARMA meeting to discuss Christmas planning in September 2018.