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.
Emily Huskins
Head of Customer Care & Veg Boxes
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 four 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, runs the veg boxes (so is probably the one you most speak to) and harvests 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 4 year old farm worker Clemmie too! (Chief Chicken Carer)
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
Fundraising
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.
