The Pick Your Own (PYO) food concept has been around for many years. In fact, the first PYO strawberry farm was established in the 1960s. During the 1970s and 1980s it was extremely popular, but then took a dramatic nose-dive thanks to the year-round imported fruit and veg offerings of the supermarkets.
Thankfully PYO is making a comeback and with good reason. It’s the ultimate field-to-fork experience and a much more enjoyable day out than trundling round the supermarket aisles. Farmers still get a good price for their produce and you’ll know exactly where your food came from. In fact, the only people who lose out are the supermarkets, who would otherwise be happy to pay a pittance to the farmer and charge us a hefty mark-up once they’ve packaged the spotless produce in plastic (and discarded up to 40 per cent of the crop that is perfectly edible but not deemed aesthetically up to scratch).
In the early years, PYO farms only offered fruit, and opportunities to pick your own vegetables were very limited. Fast-forward to today and all that has changed. The largest farms have several hundred acres open from late spring to autumn, where you can pick anything from plums to pumpkins and strawberries to squash.
Most PYO farms will open in April or May but with only one or two early crops (usually asparagus and rhubarb) on offer. From June through to September things really get going and you’ll be able to check off your weekly fresh-produce shopping list with ease. You won’t have to park in a multistorey, either.
In recent years the PYO principle has been taken even further. Some farms and cooperatives now offer ‘Pick your Own Pig’ and similar meat schemes, allowing you to choose livestock, take an interest in its rearing and then collect the meat once it has been slaughtered. It won’t be to everyone’s taste, but if you are interested in animal welfare and food ethics, it’s a logical step and one which takes traceability of your meat to the next level.