Farm shops across the UK generate a massive £1.4 billion in sales nationally while employing 25,000 workers, the first substantial survey of its kind has shown.

The fresh findings were revealed today (2 March) by Harper Adams University at the annual Farm Retail Association Conference.

Researchers aimed to understand the impact farm shops have on communities, farmers and suppliers as well as the wider economy and the UK’s rural landscape.

The study found that there are an estimated 1,581 farm retailers nationally, employing 25,000 people, with sales totalling £1.4 billion.

Some 64% of farm shops expect sales to increase further in 2022 and a third of all farm shops have opened in the last 10 years.

Other findings showed that customers are attracted to shopping with farm retailers because of their quality of products, customer service and the farm setting.

Rural shops are the future and the government needs to support them, the Association of Convenience Stores said at the launch of its Rural Shop Report today (23 February).

The report reveals that throughout 2020, rural consumers have increasingly used their local shop for a wider range of products, and one in five reporting that they depend on their local shop more now than a year ago.

More than a third of the UK convenience sector is made up of rural shops and between them they employ more than 126,000 people.

The report reveals that rural shop owners have invested more than £197m in their businesses over the past year and 21% now provide a home delivery service in their local area.

In addition, the report shows that 79% of rural shops are actively engaged in their communities, with 42% making donations to a local food bank over the past year.

ACS chief executive, James Lowman, said: “Rural shops have been absolutely essential to their communities over the last year, helping customers to shop safely and putting in place new services like home delivery to support those who aren’t able to get out to stores. The message from this year’s report is that rural shops have become even more important during the Covid pandemic, retailers now have even closer relationship with their customers, are employing more people, are taking part in even more community activity, and offer a range of wider and more powerful range of services than ever. These businesses have been crucial at a time when more people are feeling isolated due to the pandemic.”

The Towns Fund has introduced the prospect of a huge and welcome allocation of new funding for towns but the three core programmes at its heart, urban regeneration, skills and connectivity have very little direct link to retail and will require some innovative thinking if they are to support it.

My gut reaction is that I fear in 2021 we will be having the same discussion about the slow death of town based retail as we are today on the cusp of 2020! This story tells us:

UK high streets have shed more than 140,000 jobs this year as store closures and retail failures made 2019 one of the most challenging years in a generation.

More than 2,750 jobs were lost every week, according to a detailed analysis by the Centre for Retail Research (CRR) published today. It predicts the picture will worsen in 2020, unless the government intervenes, with high business rates one of the factors blamed for accelerating chain store closures.

Prof Joshua Bamfield, the CRR’s director, said retail was in crisis owing to high costs, low levels of profitability and sales moving online.

“These problems are felt by most businesses operating from physical stores in high streets or shopping malls,” Bamfield said. “The low growth in consumer spending since 2015 has meant that the growth in online sales has come at the expense of the high street.”

“But just as the shops cannot say how much extra business Sunday trading has generated, the unions cannot offer anything more than “anecdotal evidence” that supermarket staff have been coerced into Sunday working.

The economic benefits do remain uncertain. Victoria Redwood, the chief UK economist at Capital Economics, believes that the overall impact of permanently extended Sunday trading “might not be very large”. She said: “It would probably just prompt consumers to alter when they shop, rather than how much they buy. Larger retailers, including department stores and supermarkets, would stand to gain most, as they are currently most affected by the restrictions. Small independent stores would lose out.”

Without hard facts, the argument rumbles on. A Government commission on the issue is soon to make a recommendation about the future in terms of this issue and when its thinking is announced I will make sure you know what it has proposed.

“John Swinney, the Scottish finance secretary, unveiled plans for a £110m windfall tax on supermarkets to help cushion heavy cuts in public spending which will see local councils lose more than £1.7bn over three years, with significant cuts in legal aid, culture, courts, historic buildings and the civil service.

The Scottish Retail Consortium said the new tax on large shops – a measure targeting retailers who sell tobacco and alcohol – was “a blatant fundraising exercise which is illogical and discriminatory”. The measure was blocked by opposition parties in the last parliament, but is now likely to be pushed through with the Scottish National party’s overall majority in Holyrood.”

I would like to see this approach piloted in England with greater hypothecation of the proceeds going to stimulate rural retail and post office development as a positive means of rebalancing things.