Philip Stewart is a full-time farmer and agri-contractor from Co. Longford, who has used his online presence as a way to diversify and drive additional income from his farming enterprise.
Last week, Agriland traveled to the Stewart Family Farm in Co. Longford to meet Philip Stewart and take a look at the farm’s beef enterprise.
Philip is known by many farmers for his YouTube channel – titled Farmer Phil – on which he posts weekly farming update videos.
The channel has almost 50,000 subscribers and is enjoyed by farmers and non-farmers both young and old, from all across Ireland and further afield.
Following the success of his YouTube channel, Philip then decided to open a farm shop on the farm in Longford to sell some of the beef produce from the farm.
He has recently planted an orchard on the farm and purchased four Tamworth pigs and hopes to sell the produce of these in the farm shop in the future.
Speaking to Agriland last week, Philip outlined: “We opened the farm shop for business in February this year and we now are selling our own beef though it.
“Our farm shop sells Friesian and Jersey beef and we have never had one bad complaint about it. “
The shop currently sells beef, local produce and Farmer Phil merchandise.
As well as apples and pork, Philip also plans to keep a range of heritage breeds of poultry and sell their produce in the shop in the future also.
This year, Philip sowed a number of heritage breeds of potatoes on a plot of land on the farm and will sell these when harvested later this year.
An area of ground was planted in pumpkins this year too, and in the run up to Halloween, Philip plans to host a ‘Pick your own Pumpkin’ event on the farm.
Online sales
Commenting on the success of the farm shop’s sales, Philip explained that most of the sales are derived from his online followers and outlined the shop is currently selling beef online “everywhere from Donegal to Cork”.
Family beef boxes for delivery is the biggest end of the business. The beef is delivered nationwide by a courier in special sheep-wool insulated boxes that keeps beef frozen for 72 hours.
All beef sold on the farm is frozen and sent to a butcher to be processed. It is returned, vacuum-packed and ready for sale.
Traceability
Philip explained that every packet of beef sold from the farm shop has a batch number.
When the batch number is entered on the farm shop website, the animal’s tag number, breed, age and picture will appear.
“We cannot get bet for traceability and that’s what we pride ourselves in. It’s quality, traceable beef,” Philip said.
Concluding, Philip outlined that the farm shop was built in a converted shed. He noted that the Veterinary Officer in Longford’s Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine was very helpful when setting the shop up.
Philip hopes to expand the shop’s offering in the future and add more traditional and heritage breeds and types of farm produce to the Stewart Family farm in the future.