Soul Farm Community Ownership
Our community shares campaign is now finished. However there a few more small slots please fill out the form here.
The Opportunity
Invest in a business you believe in. We’re asking you to buy community shares in Soul Farm so we can secure our future as an organisation.
story
Be a part of our story
Soul Farm is a no-dig market farm growing seasonal, organic vegetables in Flushing, in the Falmouth area of Cornwall. We’ve always been committed to connecting the community in and around Falmouth to food grown with soul and to the land that’s local to all of us.
We’re now in our fifth growing season and Soul Farm has become much bigger than the small group of people who work here. Many of you have shown us that this matters to you too.
We’re at a crucial point where we need to expand to meet the demand for local food grown using ecological principles. So we’re inviting you to be a part of our story. Invest with us and become co-owners of Soul Farm.
We currently feed about 740 local people a week. That covers our veg boxes and our market stall at the Food Barn - Tregew. On top of that, we also donate food to partners who work with people experiencing food insecurity and we supply restaurants across Falmouth and Flushing.
Our aims
Ambitions
To feed more people overall
To feed more people in food insecurity
To have more of the community involved
Invest in more efficient ways of growing
To have better winter production
To secure our future
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about community shares
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This is a community share issue, which is a much snappier name for what they are legally-speaking: withdrawable shares in a Community Benefit Society (CBS). Unlike shares in companies, you’ll not get a dividend nor are you able to sell them to someone else. Withdrawable shares work a lot more like a bank account, as you get your money back through withdrawing it from the society. However, the society can only give it back to you if we’re doing well as a business (we have to have sufficient trading surpluses and ready cash to enable it to give you your investment back in legal terms).
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6% interest on share capital paid from 2024
Choice of how much interest you want to receive up to 6% - with the remainder being re-invested in the business
Option of interest accrued as new share capital, paid in cash or paid in the form of credit for veg/produce
A vote at the AGM on important issues facing the society
A vote for the Board of Directors
The chance to stand for and be elected to the Board of the society
The chance to get their money returned on a first-come-first-served basis if interest is available for withdrawal from 2028 onwards
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Like a bank account, we pay interest each year on the investment, which we plan to be 6% each year. We plan to pay cash interest to you every year or in the form of produce from the business – we’ll just add the interest you are due to your Ooooby account with us which can be spent in due course (and you can also opt for the interest to be paid a new share capital if produce doesn’t work for you!) Each year, the Board will decide how much interest to pay, and whether they can afford to allow shares to be withdrawn (and if so, how many) and then tell investors how to make withdrawal requests. Under our rules, requests are paid out on a first-received, first-paid basis. We aim to allow around 10% of capital to be withdrawn per year from 2028 onwards.
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The minimum investment is £100 and the maximum is £25,000.
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You could lose some or all of the money you invest. You have no right to compensation from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, nor any right of complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Please don’t invest any money you can’t afford to lose.
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Unfortunately not
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There are several ways people can help the business. Firstly, persuade other people to support us. That’s the real secret of community ownership: we make the rewards of our success something we can share with the people who matter the most to us.
Secondly you could find places for the team to talk. Could we present the offer to a club, society or business?
“Soul Farm is exactly the sort of farm I imagined working with when I started training market gardeners 11 years ago. This is a model of the type of farming that we need to secure the future. It’s exciting to see these systems in operation.”
Jean Martin Fortier
The Market Garden Institute, mentor and author
