What is River Cottage?
It was 1998 when Hugh moved into the original River Cottage in Dorset, to start growing and rearing some of his own food. 'River Cottage' has since moved on, and has grown and developed, but we continue to stand for the same principles: self-sufficiency, food integrity, and the consumption of local, seasonal produce.
Today, River Cottage consists of several different projects...
River Cottage HQ (Park Farm) is our base for running courses and events inspired by the philosophy of the original River Cottage – ranging from a night’s dining and entertainment, through to courses in foraging, curing, gardening, breadmaking, butchery and more. For full details, see the River Cottage HQ Events and Courses homepage and meet the River Cottage Team.
River Cottage also has a Local Produce Store in Axminster, where we work with a wonderful collection of local and organic food & drink producers from the South West. We stock a wide selection of the very best local and seasonal provisions including milk, eggs, bread, meat, poultry, beers and wines.
The Axminster Canteen annexed to the Local Produce Store serves meals during the day and is open for evening service and Sunday lunch.
We have also teamed up with our friends at Komedia to bring River Cottage to Bath. The Bath Canteen is open every day and like the Axminster Canteen, showcases the very best of what the South West has to offer.
Our other projects include series for television, regular food columns, and a range of books, DVDs and online courses, some of which you may already be familiar with. To keep up-to-date with our latest news, bookmark our News homepage, or sign up for our monthly newsletter.
River Cottage is not a charity, but does aim to be a ‘more than profit’ organisation. This means, firstly, that we are ready to re–invest much of our income in developing our ideology and the base of our activities. It also means that we should be ready to hold back from, or turn down, business that conflicts with our ideology and our commitment to ethical business practice. Thirdly, we feel we should also be making links with, and finding ways to support, other organisations who share our ideas. Some of these organisations are indeed charities and you can click here to find out about the ones we are working with this year.
Welcome to Rivercottage.net
Hello and welcome to Rivercottage.net, a website about food, where it comes from, and why that matters. I‘m Hugh Fearnley–Whittingstall, and to begin with, this might look a bit like "my" website – but with your help, we have already started to change that! I have strong opinions about food, and here they are, sprinkled liberally all over the site. But when you‘ve had a good rummage, I‘d really like to know what you think. So please use the Have Your Say bulletin board, tell me what you think matters, and help make this the best food website on the planet...
It is going to be another exciting year – to be kept up to date on new events, courses and products – or just to find out what we are up to! – sign up for our monthly newsletter.
All the best,
Hugh
Contact Us
Click here for details of how to contact us.
This website is operated by HFW Interactive Limited ("River Cottage") for full terms and conditions please click here.