Keelham Farm Shop

From a turnover of £6.1m in 2009, to £11.1m in 2014, Keelham Farm Shop defied the recession. With the support of the Design Council, they grew their business by more than 15% a year.

Ambition

Owners of Keelham Farm Shop, James and Victoria Robertshaw, were eager to expand their business and open more branches. With this clear goal in mind, they turned to the Design Council for expert strategic guidance.

The process

Design Council’s Design Associate, Andy Cripps has extensive experience in providing design guidance to some of the world’s biggest companies including Shell, BP, BMW and Volvo so was well placed to help. Using the Design Council’s investigative approach, Cripps worked alongside the Robertshaws to develop a deep understanding of Keelham Farm Shop’s business structure and pinpointed the changes needed to provide them with a strategic path to success.

Cripps worked alongside the Robertshaws to develop a deep understanding of Keelham Farm Shop’s business structure and pinpoint exactly the changes needed to provide them with a strategic path to success. Cripps identified two essential changes:

• Better shop management to improve margins and create less wastage
• Strengthen and standardise the existing Keelham brand

Cripps developed these requirements and matched the Robertshaws to carefully selected agencies capable of carrying out the design brief. Together, they selected Thompson Brand Partners in Leeds to undertake the £30,000 project.

The results

With Design Council support in place and Thompson Brand Partners carrying out the design brief, the future for Keelham Farm Shop was clear. A new, high-impact and coherent brand design blueprint was developed, giving the business the consistency, yet flexibility, required to continue growing while remaining recognisable within the local community.

Business growth included the development of a second store in Skipton while a £500,000 upgrade of the current store in Thornton was carried out ahead of a £4m rebuild. The company’s financial success is strong and it now has the ability to roll out the Keelham Farm Shop concept elsewhere.