About us.
Hampshire Market Garden CIC is a community interest company working across Hampshire to grow food, regenerate land, and inspire change.
We champion soil health as the foundation for a thriving food system, using organic and regenerative farming practices to produce high quality, seasonal vegetables.
As a not-for-profit, our mission goes beyond food production: we engage communities through volunteering, education, and outreach, helping people reconnect with nature and take part in building a fairer, healthier future.
Whether it’s supplying local veg boxes, partnering with schools, or trialling climate-resilient growing techniques, everything we do supports our vision of healthy soil, healthy food, and healthy people.
Chris Huskins
Managing Director & Head of Farming
Chris has loved growing food from the minute he spent time on his great Aunts farm in Worksop. After a career in marketing and radio, he took this passion to a new level starting Urban Farming in the Southampton area before going all-in on a small scale farm in East Sussex.
After 3.5 years and over 4,500 veg boxes grown and delivered, Chris and his wife had a little girl (Clemmie) and decided to move back closer to family in Southampton.
Since then at the help of Hampshire Market Garden CIC he has been our head grower and become a certified soil scientise specialising in the Soil Food Web. Whilst he would rather be in the field surrounded by nature, we keep sending him out to speak and engage people on all things soil; Watch his TEDx talk here.
Mark Welch
Lead Grower - Hambledon
Mark loves growing, cooking and eating good honest grub! During his career he has worked hard to learn how to grow, cook, and connect food to people; and brings that experience to our market garden. With over fifteen years experience in the hospitality industry Mark has worked alongside great cooks such as Laura Jackson, Rachael O’Sullivan and Bill Granger.
More recently he was inspired through work with local community food projects, Growing communities, Organic Lea and his time working with our friend Mike at Northdown Orchard.
Mark brings a wealth of knowledge, love for food, and amazing work ethic to the market garden and joined us in April 2024 helping to build the market garden you see now.
Debbie Lockett
Director & Community Outreach Manager
Some of you may recognise Debbie.. She actually started the original version of Hampshire Market Garden (Called Ooooby Hampshire) with Seb.
After some time away from the business working to help people with community in and around Winchester she has rejoined the team as our Community Outreach Manager and Director.
Debbie is passionate about community and is helping us to connect with the people of Hampshire to get people back to farms and connect them with where their food is grown. Debbie is also likely to be the one you hear from for community projects, school or group visits, talks, and to help get healthy food into the restaurants, pubs, shops and community fridges of Hampshire.
Kate Noyce
Grower - Hambledon
Kate is passionate about natural ways of living and natural food. We couldn’t do without her on our market garden as she is relentlessly hardworking, has a brilliant attention to detail, reminds us when we have forgotten to take care of ourselves… and built the infamous Billy the scarecrow!
Kate has fantastic knowledge when it comes to growing and is convincing us every week to put more flowers on the market garden to build more biodiversity into our systems.
Recently Kate has been running sourdough making workshops at family groups at Rushmere Farm and is my go-to advisor in yoghurt making too.
Emily Huskins
Customer Care Admin & Head of Logistics
Emily has a wealth of experience in building a growing & market garden veg box scheme in Sussex. Since moving back to Hampshire and raising her lovely three year old Clemmie around food and farming, she wants to help connect people back to farms in the same way.
Emily is our happy and smiley delivery driver for some of our delivery routes, deals with a huge amount behind the scenes, and lately has been helping to pack the veg boxes, and harvest veg in our market garden team as well.
We couldn’t do this without her! And often being assisted by the wonderful helping hands our 3 year old farm worker Clemmie too! (Chief Chicken Carer)
Johnny Grist
Grower & Community Lead - East Tytherley
Johnny is super passionate (and knowledgable) about all things the natural world. He loves foraging and is constantly, in his own words, eating weeds!
He joins us with experience and knowledge in the food industry too having worked as a chef and run his own vegan restaurant through to more lately brewing craft beer in Southampton.
If he isn't on the farm, on his allotment, or out in nature, he is turning any excess veg we have into delicious wines!
He joined us in 2025 and is already integral to the team.
Additional Board Members
Seb Mayfield
Director
Seb has been involved in the sustainable food movement for 15 years, initially establishing Food Up Front, a social enterprise in London that supported households to grow food in their unused outdoor space. Seb worked for Sustain – the alliance for better food and farming, for 6 years, and is co-founder of the Independent Food Aid Network, a national charity that represents independent food aid providers.
More recently Seb founded the Winchester Food Partnership and was Chair for 2 years. Seb is a 2015 Winston Churchill Fellow and 2016 Clore Social Fellow, and as a resident of Winchester he likes nothing more than a dip in the River Itchen.
He is now working full time on the global IT system that is fundamental in ours and many other veg box companies operations.
John Mclaren
Director
John has a background in food, from leaving school to becoming a qualified chef.
Then in the early 90’s setting up a wholefood store and an organic box scheme in Winchester.
As the box scheme became more successful John joined a young Riverford business and helped them to grow and become the successful company they are now.
From there John joined the Hampshire Market Garden team and helped us develop quickly in a difficult time across the globe.
He steadied the ship through the pandemic times and we wouldn't be here now without his experience through that time.
He is now a director and runs operations at Winchester City Football Club
You?
Director
We are looking for new board members to help with a number of roles.
Finances
Sales
Governance
Legal
If you are passionate about local food systems, then do let us know.
Email your interest to us on:
We look forward to hearing from you, and talking all things local food, soil, small business or just all things Hampshire.
Healthy Soil. Healthy Food. Healthy People.
Manor Farm, East Tytherley, Hampshire.
SP5 1LE
A Community Interest Company growing organic vegetables for hundreds of local families every week across Hampshire.