Guy Singh-Watson (born Guy Watson, 1960) is a British

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer m ...

and founder and creator of Riverford, an

organic farm Organic farming, also known as ecological farming or biological farming,Labelling, article 30 o''Regulation (EU) 2018/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018 on organic production and labelling of organic products and re ...

and UK-wide organic vegetable box delivery company.

Biography

Singh-Watson was born in

Totnes Totnes ( or ) is a market town and civil parish at the head of the estuary of the River Dart in Devon, England, within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is about west of Paignton, about west-southwest of Torquay and abo ...

. He was brought up on Riverford Farm, in

Buckfastleigh Buckfastleigh is a market town and civil parish in Devon, England situated beside the Devon Expressway ( A38) at the edge of the Dartmoor National Park. It is part of Teignbridge and, for ecclesiastical purposes, lies within the Totnes Deanery ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

, which was taken over by his family in the 1950s. After studying Agricultural and Forestry Science at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

he became a

management consultant Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants ...

, but left after working in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

for a while. In 1986 Singh-Watson returned to the farm, deciding to convert it to farming organically. In the 1990s, to find an effective way of distributing his produce, he developed the weekly

vegetable box scheme A vegetable box scheme is an operation that delivers fresh fruit and vegetables, often locally grown and organic, either directly to the customer or to a local collection point. Typically the produce is sold as an ongoing weekly subscription and ...

, which is delivered direct to customers' doors with locally grown produce. In 2015 the Riverford business was valued at £45 million. In June 2018 it was announced that Riverford would transition to employee ownership, with 74% of the business being held in a trust overseen by a board. Singh-Watson lectures on ethical business and is a judge for the Observer Ethical Awards and his leadership has seen five previous Observer awards including Best Ethical Business and Best Ethical Restaurant in 2009. Singh-Watson married Geetie Singh in 2014. He is a keen surfboarder. In July 2018 he was interviewed on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

's ''

Desert Island Discs ''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942. Each week a guest, called a "castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (usua ...

'' programme. In 2018 Singh-Watson sold 76% of Riverford Organic Farmers to the trustee of an

employee ownership trust An employee ownership trust (EOT) holds a permanent or long-term shareholding in a company on trust for the benefit of all the company’s employees. An EOT provides indirect (trust) employee ownership of a company. Among the different forms of em ...

Publications

*''Riverford Farm Cook Book: Tales from the Fields, Recipes from the Kitchen'' (2008) Singh-Watson, G. and Baxter, J.

References

External links

Triodos Bank: interview with Guy Watson October 2011

About Guy Singh-Watson - Riverford Organic Farmers

Guy Singh-Watson
interview on BBC Radio 4 ''

'', 1 July 2018 {{DEFAULTSORT:Singh-Watson, Guy 1960 births Living people Alumni of the University of Oxford British farmers People from Buckfastleigh People from Totnes