WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?
Oscar’s great grandmother was known as Duchess. It was her drive and determination to challenge the status quo and push the farm forwards that inspired him to create Duchess Oil.
In 2012 Oscar was thinking about the relationship between farming and food. About how the gap between the two had grown. It was then that he thought about making a rapeseed oil that could be grown, harvested, bottled and pressed on the farm without the need for any unnecessary steps.
No mass production, just a year of hard work. That’s what makes Duchess Oil. If the weather holds out, we plant the rapeseed around August. Then it’s a combination of patience, luck and determination that gets it from soil to oil.
If the winter is kind, and the birds don’t eat the rest, we harvest the seed in July. Next we press, bottle, and label the oil on the farm, ready to send it out to you. We even feed the pressed seeds to the cows, so nothing goes to waste.
Then a couple of years ago, we added heritage grains to the growing mix. These grains grow tall, scavenge for water and nutrients, require no chemicals to grow and taste downright delicious.
In 2019 Abi Aspen joined us as senior flour nerd, Head of Grains. She scours the world in search of strong, interesting and delicious varieties, and manages milling operations. Our aim is to see a regenerative grain farming system that doesn’t need the addition of synthetic chemicals.
After our successful 2020 Crowdfunder are now on the road to growing, dehulling, cleaning, milling and bagging all our grain in house!
We’ve been farming here for many years, and we want to do it for many more. To make that possible we have to protect the soil that we grow from, and the environment that our farm is a part of.
We have worked with Friends of the Earth to try and stop the use of harmful insecticides. We are always looking to diversify our crops and 150-acres of our farm are dedicated to conservation. It’s just the start of what we want to do because we truly believe that sustainability and profitability are part of the same puzzle.