Local pig farmer and local farm shop owners nominate for working women's oscar

WANTAGE, U.K. - Oct. 20, 2014 - PRLog -- Jane is passionate about farming and with husband Andy has been running a farm shop in East Hanney since 1986, where she has built up a loyal following of customers from around the Thames Valley and beyond. She rears her own pigs on the farm and has been a  trailblazer for additive-free pork and dry-curing of bacon since the mid 1980s.

Committed to local food and sustainability, Jane was a driving force behind the setting up of the Thames Valley Farmers' Market Association in 2000, which became a cooperative in 2003. She has been  an active member since the start and is now Treasurer of the Thames Valley Farmers' Market Cooperative.

You will regularly hear Jane on BBC Radio Oxford and see her in person at local schools, WIs and food festivals, promoting local food, farmers' markets and giving cooking demonstrations, donating her fee to a charity of the venue's choice.

As a member of the local south Oxfordshire LEADER group, which supports people with small businesses and local farmers, Jane helps them to acquire grants and to makes sure they are aware of the grants available in their area.

The delicious smell of bacon cooking at farmers' markets around the Thames Valley is likely to be Jane on the Dews Meadow Farm stall at the crack of dawn, serving bacon and sausage sandwiches to the local customers!

Before becoming a regular at farmers' markets, Jane use to travel around the country with a group of women calling themselves Ladies in Pigs (LIPS), which still runs today,  promoting British Pork until she retired from the group in 1999 and joined the Steering Group for Reading Farmers' Market. She was also  a founder member of Oxford Food Group which later became the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Food Group.

Dews Meadow Farm produces a whole range of home-reared pork products and has won numerous awards for its home-cured bacon and even produces speciality 'designer' sausages and burgers!  Jane will not find out whether she is a National winner until the awards ceremony on 14 November.

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For further information please contact: Louise Esplin, Esplin PR, Tel: 01235 850115 Mob: 07775678237 email: esplinpr@gmail.com