About Green’s Farm Supplies 

Green’s Farm Supplies, based in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, is run by husband and wife team Chris and Kate Jeffrey. The business was established in 2004 and it moved to its current location in 2006.

Chris said: “We were over the moon to win the Independent Store of the Year category; the team is elated and it’s wonderful to be recognised by the National SQP Awards for what we do every day. I watched the live stream of the awards on my iPhone, while I was feeding some sheep.

“It was a very difficult year for everybody. My team, myself and Kate, we’ve put ourselves here on the frontline.”

In 2018, Chris and Kate made a decision to reduce the size of the company as overheads were too high and profit margins were under pressure.

Chris said: “We had expanded our business significantly, and we got to a point where we were too big. We were selling all sorts of things like cattle feeding equipment and field gates, but there was no money in it, there was no profit.

“We decided to concentrate on what we did best, which is providing our customers with a wonderful range of feed, animal medicines, accessories, and, of course, good advice and service.”

While turnover has dropped by a significant amount, Chris said that profitability has increased.

Chris said: “We provide a very good product with a competitive price structure offering good advice and great service and that is the key to making the business profitable.”

Compost proved a big seller in 2020. During spring and summer, Green’s normally sells 24 tonnes of compost, but during the first lockdown, sold more.