The Leckford Estate

Cows on the Leckford Estate

Sustainable farming

Championing sustainable farming starts at home: a unique part of the Waitrose story is that we run our own farm.

The Leckford Estate was bought by our founder John Spedan Lewis in 1928. It covers 4000 acres in Hampshire and includes a farm, plant nursery and water garden.

Our farm produces crops, milk, meat, fruit and vegetables for sale in our supermarkets.

In May 2009 Waitrose become the first retailer to plant its own vineyard. The grapes will be used to produce a high quality sparkling wine which debuted on the shelves at Waitrose in 2014.

Longstock Park Nursery (www.longstocknursery.co.uk) sells a wide range of shrubs and plants which are also available for purchase online together with expert advice.

Longstock Park Water Garden (www.longstockpark.co.uk), rated one of the finest gardens of its type in Europe, is open to the public from April to September, on the first and third Sunday afternoon of the month. Proceeds go to local charities.

Leckford Estate also has leisure facilities for our Partners, such as golf courses and fly fishing. It is one of our five locations around the UK exclusively for Partners, who can take holidays there for a subsidised rate.

The estate’s team puts care into producing high quality food for Waitrose in a way that pays commercially, but  doesn’t cost the earth environmentally .

The Waitrose way – the supermarkets’ new coordinated approach to CSR – includes a commitment to ‘Tread Lightly’; Head of Leckford Iain Dalton confirms that’s something the estate has been doing for years.

‘Leckford has farmed in harmony with the environment from day one, but the challenge we face today is the global food challenge,’ he explains. It comprises three major issues: global population growth, the end of ‘cheap’ oil and the impact of climate change, coupled, he adds, with a decline in biodiversity.

‘It’s a perfect storm,’ he points out. ‘How do we feed everyone without needing two planets to do it? Across Waitrose – and at Leckford – our challenge is to produce quality food for our branches with minimal environmental impact.’

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