Soul Farm — Round 1 — Open Share Offer

https://www.ethex.org.uk/invest/soul-farm

Soul Farm is a market farm growing seasonal, organic vegetables in Flushing, in the Falmouth area of Cornwall. We’ve always been committed to connecting the community in and around Falmouth to food grown with soul and to the land that’s local to all of us.

We’re now in our fifth growing season and Soul Farm has become much bigger than the small group of people who work here. Many of you have shown us that this matters to you too. 

This is an invitation to invest & be a co-owner of Soul Farm. We are issuing withdrawable Community shares, with the option of share interest paid as cash or in the form of produce from our farm.

Our opportunity

We’re at a crucial point where we have a proven model and need to expand to meet the demand for local food grown using ecological principles. We are at a point where we can make this a sustainable business - with your help. 

Our ambitions:

• To feed more people overall
• To feed more people in food insecurity
• To have more of the community involved
• Invest in more efficient ways of growing
• To have better winter production
• To secure our future

The main way we can do this is by expanding production, by becoming more efficient and by having more covered growing areas. We are looking at building a state of the art polytunnel for great winter production and more summer crops that we all know and love. 

Expand our delivery

We will be expanding wholesale and our veg box offering. Have your say as to where we expand our veg box offer to beyond Falmouth and Truro. 

Be part of our story

We currently feed about 740 local people a week. That covers our veg boxes and our market stall at the Food Barn. On top of that, we also donate food to partners who work with people experiencing food insecurity and we supply restaurants across Falmouth and Flushing. 

You might be a veg box member or customer at the farmers market and you want to make sure that we are around for a long time. 

You might be a restaurant owner or chef and you might see an opportunity to solidify your local supply of veg. Or you might be a business person or investor and you might just be thinking that supporting small agroecological businesses like this would make a good component of your portfolio. 

Visit the farm and help out

• In the spring we will be holding a new members/ share holders gathering and tour of the farm
• Come a volunteer every Wednesday
• We are looking for mentor's to help us in the following areas, if that fits then you can stand for election in those positions or we can give you a co-opted board position
  • Human resources
  • Management finances
  • Training
  • Logistics
  • Customer service
  • Infrastructure and builds

Why invest

• Choice of how much interest you want to receive up to 6% - with the remainder being re-invested in the business 
• 6% interest on share capital paid from 2024
• Option of interest accrued as new share capital, paid in cash or paid in the form of credit for veg/produce
• A vote at the AGM on important issues facing
  the society
• A vote for the Board of Directors
• The chance to stand for and be elected to the Board
  of the society
• The chance to get their money returned on a first-come-first-served basis if interest is available for withdrawal from 2028 onwards

FAQs

You can read our full FAQs in our share offer document or on our website. 

What are Community Shares?

Community shares are withdrawable shares that cannot be sold, traded or transferred between Members, unlike shares in a typical company. All Members are entitled to one vote – regardless of how many shares they hold. Members can be paid interest on their shares if the Board believe it would be sensible to do so, and can also withdraw their shareholding, along with any interest accrued, again subject to the approval of the board.

The Community Shares Standard Mark is awarded by the Community Shares Unit to offers that meet national standards of good practice. For more information about community shares, the Community Shares Standard Mark and the Community Shares Unit go to www.communityshares.org.uk

Documents