Farm Shop Awards

The team will hear if they have won the ultimate prize on 18th April when the Farm Shop & Deli Awards which celebrate the highest levels of service, product knowledge, initiative, innovation and community involvement will take place at Birmingham’s NEC. The event, which is co-located with the UK’s largest food and drink trade event Food & Drink Expo, recognises the very best standards in the UK’s independent, specialist retail market. With an expert panel of judges joining Nigel Barden, Chair of Judges, Keelham have beaten the competition to be named as the only Northern finalist in the large farm shop category, as the 40-year-old business’s ongoing commitment to making great tasting, fresh, local food more accessible impressed the judges and customer voters.

On 15th July the Keelham team will head down to London’s iconic Wembley Stadium for the illustrious Family Business Place Red Ribbon awards ceremony, the highest and most prestigious accolade to be awarded to Britain’s independent, family-owned businesses. Keelham will be competing for the Family Business of the Year Award in the North East category, having beaten off hundreds of other family businesses to reach the finals. Representing the best current talents in British commerce and entrepreneurship, encapsulating the reasons that family-owned businesses have become the engine room of the UK economy, Keelham and their fellow finalists were shortlisted by a panel of leading specialist retailers and key industry figures. Previous winners have included The Goring, Shepherd Neame, Michel Roux Jr at Le Gavroche, Pimlico Plumbers, Angels the Costumiers and East End Foods.

2015 was a milestone year for Keelham, as co-owners and siblings Victoria Robertshaw and James Robertshaw fulfilled a long-held ambition and opened their second farm shop in Skipton. Based on a working sheep farm, the original Farm Shop in Thornton, near Bradford, was founded by James and Victoria’s grandad, Harry, who diversified and opened a butchers in 1929 so that he could sell the meat he farmed. His son Andrew, Victoria and James’s dad, then went on to open Keelham’s first farm shop in the early 1970s.

Victoria Robertshaw commented, “It’s with huge thanks to our hardworking and talented team, and our loyal customers, that we have made the shortlist for both of these prestigious industry awards. At Keelham we’re very proud of our farming heritage which is why we are able to stock produce from over 400 local farmers and suppliers. Yorkshire is a county of riches when it comes to fresh ingredients and it is really exciting that together we are helping to put Yorkshire on the food map.”

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