Is it ever sustainable to eat beef? When is food “slow food” and what’s the environmental cost and benefit to taking it slow? Join the Planet Pod team down on the farm as Amanda chats with Bridget and Bill Biddell, owners of Hampton Estate and Shane Holland, Executive Chairman of Slow Food.
Our guests:
Bridget Biddell (nee Thornton) and her husband Bill run and manage the Hampton Estate in Surrey and live at Hampton Lodge with their two daughters. Bill is the Chief Executive of the Hampton Estate and Hampton Estate Farms.
Bill graduated from Cambridge University and then qualified as a Chartered Surveyor specialising in commercial property before joining the estate in 1988.
The estate produces 100% grass fed beef from its pedigree Sussex herd and specialises in the growing of Fuggles Hops used by traditional breweries across the UK. The estate woodlands are managed for high quality timber and the estate buildings comprise cottages, houses, offices, workshops and a craft centre.
Bill has been a college governor at Merrist Wood College, Guildford, he sits on the Surrey Nature Partnership, is a director of Stern Farms and has recently stepped down as Chairman of The Surrey Agricultural Society.
Shane Holland is the Executive Chairman of Slow Food in the UK. He has held CEO positions within both the business and the third sectors and has chaired a number of large NFPS. Within the third sector his work has specialised in regards to our most vulnerable citizens, their issues of food poverty & food skills, education, offending, and access to service.
His other current roles include chairing Eat Club, the organisation that teaches food skills to young people and sitting as a trustee of the charity United St Saviours, which gives grants to community groups and other charities of in excess of £1 million a year alongside running best in class almshouses.
He is a governor and chair of Friends of Highshore School, a special School which has food education, growing, and food enterprise as an integral part of its curriculum, and is past chair of Plan Zheroes, the platform that connects surplus fresh food with charities and people in need.
A food writer – specialist subject, cheese – he also frequently sits on expert panels, appears both in print and on the radio, lectures at universities, has given a TED Talk as one of their “Architects of Tomorrow”, and carries out dozens of speaking engagements a year.
We are delighted that Planet Pod was shortlisted as a finalist for the Be The Change Awards 2019. See our short award entry video here.
