About Us

Regather is a community benefit society working to improve food and build community in Sheffield. We run an organic farm, veg box scheme, and many other community projects. In our organisation, we centre our work around care for our environment and the people in our community.
Our objects are to foster community development and understanding around the importance of the local food system in Sheffield and how it works, in order to enable everyone to work together to democratically change their food system for the better.

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Our History

Back in 2010, Regather started as a group of individuals with a common interest in seeing their local community in Sheffield flourish. As a cooperative we embarked on many endeavours such as event production, education, baking, catering, music recording, and vegetable boxes. We’ve gone through several evolutions. For more than 4 years now, we’ve narrowed our focus on the goal of improving food for Sheffield.

Our veg box enables us to join forces with other local growers and independent businesses across the region to make it easy to shop local and provide the best quality, values driven products. Meanwhile, we’ve been growing our own locally sourced food for Sheffield via our Organic certified farm. We strive to work with the land around us to produce food in a way that provides habitat for wildlife and restores biodiversity while employing local community members at a real living wage.

We not only grow and deliver food, but we also contribute to the development of local food infrastructure through our research and development work. A role now supported as part of the South Yorkshire Sustainability Centre. Regather has been campaigning for fairer access to a food system that is more accountable and sustainable for many years. Whether that is unlocking land for organic growing, plant propagation & composting, creating new community orchards or insisting that food producing skills are taught in schools. We will keep on advocating for a food system that is better for people and for the planet.

Our Ethos & Values

We wanted to take this opportunity to share with you some of the values and commitments that underpin our box scheme. For us it’s not just about growing and delivering food. What we do and why we do it are an essential part of the project. Below is a brief outline of some of the things we think are important and why together we believe we can make a lasting difference.

Environmental Sustainability

The world is undergoing unprecedented environmental challenges; we are facing global climate change, habitat loss, and biodiversity loss. At Regather we strive to align our projects with low emissions, land conservation and land restoration practises. No one can solve these issues alone, but collectively reimagining a better local food system is part of the solution.

Local and Independent

Research from the New Economics Foundation has shown that spending locally keeps more money in the Sheffield economy, creating additional income for local people which is then spent locally, contributing to a multiplier effect that benefits all our city's residents. When money is spent elsewhere it tends to stay elsewhere. Regather prioritises local businesses when purchasing food, making sure that your money is reinvested in local people and local quality products.

planting herbs with volunteers club garden community garden

Diversity and Inclusion

We believe everyone deserves equal access to healthy and sustainable foods. We are honoured to serve and be part of a diverse community. We strive for inclusivity and representation in our members, workers and board of directors. This is a work in progress, but we’ve made a commitment to hold ourselves accountable.

Supporting Our Sector

Local fruit and veg boxes are growing across the UK, with more and more people making the decision to switch to local and enjoy the quality and uniqueness of these independent producers. As more people join, our network, buying power and voice increases, enabling us to be more impactful. And collectively that makes a difference. Regather is a proud member of ShefFood - the food partnership for Sheffield. Together we are a cross-sector partnership of local public agencies, businesses, academic and community organisations committed to working together to create a more sustainable food system for Sheffield.

Community

Regather is an active member of the local community and our work enables us to interact with a wide range of Sheffield residents and open up access to food and the land it is grown on, whilst building new ties between local people.

Co-operative

Regather is a community benefit society and run based on co-operative principles. That means we're free to make sure the business always maintains its focus on our core values and works for staff and community. We pay all staff the same rate of pay, regardless of their role and reinvest profits back into the business and not to shareholders or overseas.

"When we farm Organically, with respect for nature and in tune with our local environment, it not only feels like the right thing to do, it produces great veg in all their glorious shapes and colours, whilst also providing our best opportunity to lessen the impact food has on our fragile world.

Eating seasonal veg means less food miles, less artificial heating or lighting, and more variety in our diets, with better quality veg that’s fresher, healthier, and tastier - picked at it’s peak ripeness. There is a rich heritage in the UK of produce that spans far beyond supermarket favourites and we are actively bringing that heritage into our future.

In my view eating food with the seasons allows us to connect more with food. And when we connect more with food, we care more about how it’s produced and why that’s important."

Doug Kemp, Farm Manager

Our Practices

We are mission driven, trading for social purpose , not just to maximise profit, and we are commited to transparency, trust and co-operation throughout the food supply chain. Read more about our practices below.

Organic

Organic is a method of food production that delivers a wide range of benefits across our whole food system, from people to planet, plant health to animal welfare. That means: No artificial fertilisers or pesticides that kill off our bugs and bees and wash into watercourses. Healthier soil that stores more carbon. No genetic modification (GM). No artificial colours and preservatives. Much higher standards of animal welfare. Both our Farm and Box Scheme are independently regulated and assessed by the Soil Association for Organic best practice. All the fruit and veg in the boxes is certified Organic.

Low Waste Packaging

We offer plastic free boxes and we reuse and recycle the delivery boxes, making it easier for you to keep your excess waste to a minimum. We work with other local suppliers to encourage them to think about packaging and have successfully brought in traditional solutions like glass bottles for local milk or new biodegradable bags for leafy salad.

No Air Freight & Buying Non-Local

We import some additional variety to our box produce, especially in the winter months, when year round access to things like citrus fruits, peppers and tomatoes have often become seen as essential in modern shopping habits. We always avoid air freight transportation, with air emitting around 50 times as much greenhouse gases as transporting the same amount by sea. Sometimes growing local can also have a bigger impact than importing from France or Spain if it involves growing with artificial light and heat. We always give careful consideration to where our food comes and its associated impacts.

Considerate Pricing

We continually review our prices to make sure we are offering the best value for money possible. Things like Organic practices and supporting decent jobs and businesses might make produce cost more than some products in the supermarket, but we think it's important to recognise the full, wider cost of food and for us it's worth every penny.

Seasonality

There is nothing like fresh fruit and vegetables at their seasonal best. For taste, there is no comparison when freshly picked in season and it saves you money as it is picked at the peak of its supply, which costs less to farm and distribute and is better for the environment, reducing the energy wasted in transportation and artificial growing. And we certainly don’t needlessly waste wonky and non uniform veg. We only get in produce that has been ordered that week so there is no wasted excess food behind the scenes, and we help our suppliers plan their demand so they can plan ahead and reduce waste as well.

Low Emissions

For our very local deliveries we use a trike, making it loads easier for us to deliver locally, lowering our carbon emissions and making the delivery round loads of fun.

Cooperative Principles

Co-operatives throughout the world share a set of values that connect us with a global movement promoting land heatlh, social justice and economic equality. Thus we strive to adher to seven internationally used principles of Co-operatives.