THORNE’S Farm Shop, the local "pick your own" fruit and veg farm at Stockleigh Pomeroy near Cheriton Fitzpaine has teamed up with local farmer, catering butcher and fine food wholesaler, M C Kelly, of Copplestone, in an exciting "farm to folk" partnership.

Over the years, M C Kelly has developed and grown its wholesale business.

Keen to bring its extensive range of exciting produce to local food lovers, M C Kelly will now introduce a selection of unique ingredients used by chefs across the county to complement the current farm shop produce at Thornes Farm Shop.

Drawing on strong relationships with local and specialist suppliers, M C Kelly plans to provide professional kitchen ingredients at affordable prices, embracing the enthusiasm for fresh, delicious produce and cooking in the Crediton/Tiverton area.

The first step is a fresh meat counter run by friendly butcher Mike offering local beef, pork, lamb, game and poultry and M C Kelly says there are many other changes to come.

M C Kelly’s managing director, Andy Gray, said: “There has never been greater interest in good home cooking.

"This is an opportunity to offer the enthusiastic cook the same top quality ingredients that professional kitchens demand.

"Combining the strengths of Anthony Thorne’s excellent vegetables with our meat and fine foods range offers a higher quality, better value alternative to the supermarket.

"Local interest and requests for our produce made it clear there is a demand for us to find a way to offer our produce in a retail environment. We look forward to hearing from customers to understand further what they would like to see on offer at their local farm shop.”

Anthony Thorne, proprietor, Thorne’s Farm Shop, said: “It is 30 years since we planted our first strawberries at Thornes farm and we have enjoyed developing a successful business supplying the local area with a wide range of home-grown soft fruit and vegetables.

"The new farm shop built in 2010 has been a showcase for our Pick Your Own business. We are always delighted to see the large numbers of customers of all ages who are still enthusiastic about picking our soft fruit while enjoying the beautiful mid Devon scenery.

"Working with M C Kelly is an exciting development for Thorne’s Farm Shop. We welcome the opportunity to work with another long established local business producing high quality food.”

Alan Quick