Helping local food find its way.
Grow Local is being shaped as a shared platform for organic and non-organic growers, farmers, wholesalers, schools, and local food teams. It helps supply connect, helps schools find local farms, and helps the wider food system work together more visibly.
Growers
Connect with wholesalers, share what you grow, and open up new public food routes.
Start here About the supplier standardSchools
Connect with your local food system, find nearby growers and farms, and build stronger local relationships.
Browse directoryWholesalers and food teams
Use better visibility around growers, planning, deliveries, routes, and where produce is going.
See the flowA friendlier way to join up farms, schools, and local food teams.
The same platform can support supply, visits, and learning without making people wade through admin language first.
Join without the hard sell
Register interest, share what you grow, and build toward supply, visits, teaching, or all three. Organic growers can join the current Welsh Veg in Schools route now, and profiles can grow over time instead of asking everything at once.
Find local farms more easily
Browse nearby growers and farms instead of trying to decode the local food system from scratch. Schools can see who hosts visits, goes into schools, or offers teaching themes, then send enquiries directly when a farm feels like the right fit.
Keep the working bits joined up
Weekly planning, delivery records, and school routing can sit in one place without losing the human side of the network. The public story and the practical logistics can live side by side instead of in separate systems.
Small Growers Supplier Standard
Food businesses (including growers) are often obliged to meet the requirements of a food safety standard. This is to show that they meet basic food safety requirements to produce safe food. For growers, there are many risks that can easily be controlled to reduce the risk of food-related outbreaks being linked to their produce.
Lantra has worked with ML3 Technical Services to devise the Small Growers Supplier Standard. This takes the ethos of the Red Tractor Standard but focuses the requirements around small market gardeners. Whilst Red Tractor is a recognised standard, it is costly, time-consuming, and onerous for small growers and not suited to market gardeners who grow many different crops.
What the standard covers
The Small Growers Supplier Standard has sections on documentation, traceability, risk assessment, farm standards, pest control, crop nutrition, crop growing, irrigation, harvesting, people, health & safety, as well as additional sections for packing areas and non-organic crop production where relevant.
The system has been written by an experienced fresh produce auditor who understands both the requirements of the customer for due diligence and the practicalities of growing produce on a small scale.
For BRCGS-certified customers
For customers who are BRCGS certified, additional supporting documents can be provided to show how the system can be used within the limitations of the BRCGS Supplier Approval clauses.
Support for growers
Support is provided by Farming Connect Horticulture to the growers through food safety training (specific to growing fresh produce), 1 to 1 support, and webinars that are all aimed to reduce the risk of food safety issues with fresh produce.
Find out more
For further information about the Small Growers Supplier Standard, contact Lantra:
Horticulture@lantra.co.ukThe organic Welsh Veg in Schools route is active, and the public layer is starting to feel real.
Grower enquiries are already coming in, the 2026 Welsh Veg in Schools route is active, and the public grower directory is already live enough to browse.
The data can now start showing what local sourcing changes.
The clearest difference is the grower-to-wholesaler leg. The wholesaler-to-school route would usually happen in both the Welsh and conventional supply chain, so this comparison keeps that school route the same on both sides.
Current public view uses transport-only estimates for 2026. It compares recorded or profile-estimated Welsh grower-to-dispatch miles with likely conventional sourcing miles, then shows school-route miles separately.
Grower-to-wholesaler miles against a likely conventional route
What that looks like on the ground
As school deliveries are logged, this view shows which Welsh farms supplied which schools.
Which produce lines are driving the biggest local difference
Growers already keeping value in Welsh supply
Find local growers and farms.
Schools can explore nearby growers and farms, see who is active locally, and understand their local food landscape without digging through spreadsheets.
The map now shows real public farms, while the full browse view lets schools filter by place, visits, and teaching offers.
Browse growers and farmsLet schools ask farms directly
- Schools can request a farm visit or invite a grower into school.
- Growers can choose whether they host on-site, visit schools, or do both.
- The request flow can sit beside supply relationships, not separate from them.
Show what growers can teach
- Farm profiles can list learning themes like soil, seasonality, growing, pollinators, or food miles.
- Schools can see which farms are suited to younger visits, workshops, or curriculum-linked sessions.
- This makes the platform about relationships as well as produce movement.
A nicer way in
- No need to figure everything out first. Start with a simple enquiry.
- Tell the team about your farm, what you grow, and whether you want supply, visits, teaching, or all three.
- If it is a fit, the platform can then support the practical weekly work with wholesalers and schools.
A clearer picture of local food
- Understand local sourcing as a living network, not a static report.
- Make it easier to find local growers, request visits, and build education links with farms.
- Use the platform as the practical side of the Welsh Veg in Schools story and wider local food work.
Built with organisations already working on better food in Wales.
Grow Local sits alongside the wider work of Welsh Veg in Schools and the public food partnerships helping local supply become more practical and more visible.
Interested in joining the Welsh Veg in Schools grower network?
Send your farm details to the Grow Local team. The enquiry form is the easiest route in, and the public page explains what to prepare before you apply.