Websites for farms and food producers
Websites for farms and food producers: the shop, the box and the Christmas order
A farm shop or food producer in Wales sells three things a website can take without a phone call: the seasonal order, turkeys and hampers in a six-week window before Christmas; the regular box, meat or veg or cheese, to a list of postcodes on set days; and the wholesale account, a price list behind a form for the restaurants and shops that stock you. Everything else, the counter, the café, the pick-your-own, the site only has to describe well enough that people drive to it. We build that site from the Starter package up, with the shop quoted on top when the boxes need one.
The year
What sells in each season, and what the site has to do about it
A food producer's website has a calendar. The pages that matter in November are not the ones that matter in June, and the site should change with them rather than say the same thing all year.
| Season | What sells | What the site does |
|---|---|---|
| Spring | Lamb for Easter, the first salad and eggs, the café reopening | The Easter order form live by early March with a cut-off date; opening hours updated the day they change; the lambing photos that people share |
| Summer | Pick-your-own, the café, the farm walk, the Royal Welsh at Llanelwedd in late July | A page for each thing people drive for, with the postcode for the satnav, parking, dogs, and whether it is on today; the show stand announced on the home page |
| Autumn | Apples and juice, the harvest, the first stock of the freezer | The box scheme page with the delivery days and postcodes; the wholesale page for restaurants planning winter menus |
| Winter | Turkeys and geese, hampers, cheese boards, the Christmas cut-off | The Christmas order open from early November with a hard cut-off, collection slots, and a hamper page with a photograph of the actual hamper; the shop's busiest six weeks handled without a 9pm phone call |
Three pages most producers lack
The wholesale page, the delivery page and the story
Wholesale. A chef in Abergavenny or a deli in Cowbridge looking for a Welsh supplier searches for the product, finds the site, and needs a trade page: what you supply, minimum order, delivery days, and a form that returns the price list. Without it they ring, or they ring the other producer. The page is short, and it is behind nothing but a form.
Delivery. Where the van goes and on which day, in postcodes rather than village names, because that is what the customer types; what goes by courier and at what cut-off; how chilled goods travel; and collection from the shop, the market and the honesty box at the gate. The shop's checkout enforces the same rules so nothing is promised that cannot be done.
The story, in both languages where it counts. Which family, which fields, how long, which breed, why the cheese is washed in that beer. This is the page that turns a search for “Welsh cheese delivered” into a repeat customer, and for a producer in Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire or on Ynys Môn it belongs in Welsh as well as English, written by a person: the Welsh Government's Helo Blod service will translate up to 500 words a month free, which covers the labels and the social posts, and the bilingual add-on covers the site.
Then the marks a customer looks for and rarely finds: the Food Hygiene Rating, which Wales requires you to display at the premises and which belongs on the site too; PGI Welsh Lamb and Welsh Beef where they apply; and the allergen information on every product page, where the law expects it. The monthly work then adds the recipe and the season page that bring the searches, and the prices are the same as for any site we build.
Questions businesses in Wales ask us
Do I need a full online shop, or just a way to take the Christmas order?
Start with what sells at a distance. For many farm shops that is the Christmas order, the hampers and one or two boxes, which is a small shop, not a supermarket. The counter trade stays on the counter. A full shop comes when the box scheme has regular customers to justify it.
Can I deliver only within a few miles and post the rest?
Yes. Own-van delivery inside a set of postcodes on set days, courier for the rest of Britain, and click and collect from the shop or the market stall. The checkout offers the customer only the options their postcode and basket allow, so chilled goods never go by second-class post.
Should the site be in Welsh?
Where the customers are, yes. A farm shop in Ceredigion or a cheese made on Ynys Môn has Welsh-speaking customers who read the labels and the site in Welsh; the Welsh version is part of the product. A producer selling online to England from Monmouthshire can start in English and add the Welsh story pages.
Can the site show our hygiene rating and the PGI mark?
It should. Displaying the Food Hygiene Rating at the premises is a legal requirement in Wales, and putting it on the site answers the question before it is asked. The PGI marks for Welsh Lamb and Welsh Beef, and any protected name you hold, go on the product page with a sentence on what they mean.
Tell us what you sell and where the van goes
A list of products and a list of postcodes is enough. You get a recommendation for the size of shop, a review of your current site if you have one, and a fixed price.