158 159 Here in Italy we have the zero-kilometre distribution, but it has never been a great success. In your opinion, why doesn’t this system work in our country? I know France better, but I suppose you have more alternatives. You have better markets. Maybe it's easier to buy products directly from a farm, at a local market or something, so there are other alternatives that we don't really have. We were the first country to have an industrial revolution, to become largely urbanised. So, we cut our cord with the countryside much earlier than France and Italy, and almost everywhere else. As a result, we have this kind of disconnect between the lives that most people lead… And I think our Box Scheme [Riverford’s weekly delivery schedule of boxes of locally grown produce, sent straight to customers' doors, Editor’s Note] is a bit about wanting to reconnect with both farming and the farmers. And so maybe there's more of a demand for that in England, because you can't find it in other ways. I think that's probably the case in France, but I don't know Italy that well. And what about your success? The reason why we've probably been the most successful – but there's also another company, Abel & Cole, that has done pretty well – is because we've been at it a long time, and we've learned a lot, and we are really, really good at it. I hope that doesn't sound arrogant, but it's taken forty years of just patient attention to detail. You know, we haven't had any clever buggers come in and want us to grow, to acquire other companies… We're quite good at selling stories, but perhaps we're not that kind of marketing aces. We're not driven by the market, we have pretty strong beliefs that inform all of our decisions, we enjoy a lot of trust from our customers. And I think that, probably, the fact that we are so different – a fact for which I feel personally responsible – and that we are becoming more and more renowned, is because we are challenging an unfair world, that a lot of people are unhappy with. And we are seen as a beacon of hope, I suppose. And it’s not just about food. I think it's also in the way we treat people, it’s in being employee-owned. It's a willingness to collaborate, and share, and so on. It’s about fairness… We have the most incredible inequality in the UK, only the US has more of it, and it’s becoming a huge problem. So I think we are offering an alternative for a lot of people who are unhappy with the direction that farming, food industry, retailing, but also society, government and business are going in. These are all quite philosophical issues. The reason we've been successful – which was your question – is that we've managed to combine all of that with the fact that we’re actually technically good at what we do. We really know fruit and vegetables, whereas a lot of our competitors have just been led by either finance or marketing. They haven't really recognised that vegetables are very demanding. One has to understand what good quality is, how you can achieve it, how it can be maintained through the supply chain. These are very detailed aspects, in which we have put a lot of effort, in order to know our business and do it well. And I believe that the combination of our storytelling with being challenging, and being different is the reason why we've been successful. That's quite a long answer, I hope it makes sense… That’s a good answer, for sure. And do you think that the responsibility to be fair, challenging and alternative, according to your philosophy, has come with some kind of sacrifice? I mean, you’ve never been driven by profit, I see… I don't feel like I've made any sacrifices, because I have no desire to have more money than I have. I feel that I have everything. I do what I love, I have the autonomy to do it the way I want to for most of my life, I have more money than I’ll ever know what to do with. So, I mean, I've got everything. I don't feel like I've made any sacrifices. There's no doubt that I could have sold the company for a lot more than I did, but that wouldn’t have made me happier, so I don't feel like I've made any sacrifice. A lot of people think I'm crazy and that it was immoral not to have maximised shareholder value because many people, probably most people, believe that this is the purpose of business. But I don't think I'm the crazy one, I think they're the crazy ones. I mean, anyone who thinks that twenty million pounds are going to make you happier than five million pounds is just an idiot. Look around you: are those rich people happy? Living in their gated communities, with their huge yachts, constantly afraid of being robbed and worried about whether their friends like them for their money, or for who they really are. I do not want that. Who would want to live like this, to be divided from the rest of humanity? I see no joy in it, at all. My second wife taught me how to enjoy my wealth a little more. Money gives us the freedom to do what we want: I can enjoy staying in a nice hotel and going to a fancy restaurant up to a point, but after a couple of days, I just want to come home and work on the farm. And in general, I enjoy working people and my interactions with them far more than my interactions with rich people. Mostly, I don't like rich people. I know, that's a prejudiced thing to say, but I find them vulgar and I don't want to spend my time with them. Part of the problem with having a lot of money is that you find yourself in situations where there are a lot of other people with a lot of money, and most of the time I don't like them. I’d rather spend my time with the people who work on the farm, than with those who own hundred million pound companies. I find the former far more interesting, because they have far more humanity.
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