Marketing Blog

I think those of us running rural businesses, farms and estates knew that there were some hard-hitting changes coming from Westminster’s Autumn Budget. What was delivered was brutal and has created a wave of anger and worry, at a level that I haven’t seen in the 30...

Trust and transparency are becoming evermore important for consumers making their buying choices. For farmers this creates complexity, but also opportunity if people are prepared to pay for proven animal rearing or crop growing practices.   Retailers, manufacturers...

A portion of 80g of carrots costs around 5.5p to put on our plates, and, if I ate them daily until Christmas, this iconic British vegetable would still cost me less than a Big Mac. But growers believe that its low pricing by retailers means that carrots are not valued...

There’s a book called Nomad Century that is haunting me. I pick it up periodically until I can read no longer. Its author, Gaia Vince, is a broadcaster, a writer and an honorary senior research fellow at UCL. She predicts that over the next 50 years, hotter...

Earlier this week I was in Kent filming a soft fruit grower for a client. Marion Regan, and her husband, Jon, now lead the family business, which started in 1893, growing strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, as well as vines. The visit was such a powerful...

Two farming brothers, Paul and John Cherry, and their wider family, set up one of the world’s most influential events in regenerative farming nine years ago.   The Groundswell Event ran on Wednesday and Thursday of this week in Hertfordshire. It is a lovely example of...

Every other day, or so, when I’m out walking my dog, I meet a farmer neighbour on the road. Almost always, they stop, turn off their engines, and ‘hae a news’. Mostly it’s about the weather, farming, what I know, where I’ve been and what I think about beef, barley or...

When I was studying for my agricultural degree at Seale Hayne in South Devon, some fellow students had attended a dedicated farming school in Somerset – Brymore Academy. Instead of going through the usual secondary system, pupils learnt to milk and calve cows, lamb...

Ploughing their own furrow: From finding time to take the dog out for his birthday to imposter syndrome and not baking cakes for the office, International Women's Day is an ideal opportunity to celebrate leaders in the field of agriculture and rural enterprise. With...

Another TB test approaches, which doesn’t seem as logistically challenging when cattle are housed, but still spices up the growing ‘to do list’ and offers the usual apprehension.  Youngstock have done well on the cover crops, which they have devoured, so they are now...

My love of farming started on a beef, sheep, and arable farm in West Somerset. With no farming background, my embryonic interest, aged 15, was fuelled by a handful of attentive and knowledgeable farmers. I was told, despite having small hands that earned me reputation...

From everything I see and hear, the pressure on farmers to make changes to reduce Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) – the 90-95% of food’s emissions embedded in on-farm production – isn’t going away. If anything, it will increase. Retailers suggest that they...

Journalist Sarah Todd is to join the ranks of agrifood and rural sector communications agency Jane Craigie Marketing (JCM), whose clients include BASF, ABP, QMS and the Oxford Farming Conference. Sarah has been an award-winning writer for over 30 years; learning her...

By Jane Craigie As I write this, I’m with 200 other journalists in Canada for the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists’ Congress. The country is vast, second in size, by land area, only to Russia. Agriculture is important to the nation; canola (oilseed...

By Jane Craigie Turriff Show means so much to so many people and has done for over 150 years. It dates back to 1864, when Queen Victoria was still on the throne, the American Civil War was still raging, and Abraham Lincoln was re-elected as the President of the United...

Do you want to work somewhere where two weeks are never the same, eat cake and be part of a fantastic, fun team? JCM is looking for a new Senior Communications Account Manager to join their team.

We work with our clients for the long term and build relationships based on trust, integrity and kindness. We like to foster client relationships that encourage feedback, honesty is important to us. We undertake regular reviews with clients and like to work as an...

At the Oxford Farming Conference (OFC) last week, we launched a report on the role of supply chains in achieving responsible food production on farms.  It is a dry read, but I’d urge anyone involved in producing or supplying food to read it, and to share it, because...

In a disastrous start to the new Prime Minister’s time in office, the £45 billion in tax cuts announced in the ‘mini budget’ has dominated the media, and deeply concerned the financial and pension markets, seeing sterling drop to a 37-year low to $1.03. The media has...

In just one month Olly Harrison, a farmer from Merseyside, earned £3,500 from YouTube. Olly started posting videos on the social media platform early in the pandemic, initially to entertain children, he now has 48,000 subscribers who watch his daily broadcasts which...

Claire Taylor is an agricultural communications specialist who works for JCM, with over a decade of experience working across TV, radio and print, as a reporter and producer. She has recently been awarded a Nuffield Scholarship for 2023 and in JCM’s latest blog, we...

There’s an archipelago of 18 islands located between Shetland and Iceland that’s home to just 54,000 people. I visited these islands - the Faroes – a few weeks ago to learn more about its fishery and agricultural sectors. The similarities to Scotland’s islands were...

As I write this, I’m sitting in rural Denmark at the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists’ Congress. In many ways the Danish landscape is similar to much of Scotland; farmers are dominantly growing spring barley, oats, as well as lots of grass and...

Discussions around future agricultural policy come at a critical time, with Scottish farmers and crofters facing astronomical input costs and increasing pressure to deliver on net zero targets – all whilst grappling with a cost-of-living crisis which has turned the nation’s focus to the cost of food.

The ‘race to the bottom’ can’t continue for farmers and the food they produce. So, I was heartened, to see Bali Nijjar, MD of Freshways, the London-based dairy processor, calling on retailers to ‘value milk appropriately’ as he announced that the price his business will pay farmers for a litre of milk will reach 40 pence from 1 May.

Just when supply chains didn’t need another crisis, Vladimir Putin decides to invade Ukraine. The human impact on Ukrainian people is almost impossible for us to comprehend, from the safety of our country and homes. Normal life, one day replaced by tragedy, fear, and loss the next.

Prior to Christmas 2021, several UK grower associations said that many of their members were not going to risk planting horticultural crops this season because they couldn’t guarantee the labour they needed to pick, pack and transport their produce. Farming and forestry businesses are also struggling to recruit and retain good, committed people, particularly in remote and rural locations.