A Bristol Michelin-starred chef has launched an initiative to ‘drive nationwide awareness and understanding of how food is grown in a playful and engaging way’. Josh Eggleton MBE, who co-owns The Pony Group and The Pony in Chew Valley, is building and launching an interactive Farm Bus, complete with live chickens and hydroponics (live growing system) to tour around the UK, in addition to a fundraising event series.
Josh has brought on board leading chefs from around the UK, including Angela Hartnett OBE, Tom Kerridge, Sally Abé and Jude Kereama, to host a series of fundraising dinners with him at The Pony in Chew Valley. The proceeds will be put towards their fundraising target of £100,000 to launch the bus in spring 2025.
The proceeds will be put towards converting a vintage double decker bus into a ‘mobile farm’, designed to travel across the nation and inspire a cross-section of communities to ‘engage with the true provenance and journey of the food that they eat’. The Pony Group has also set up a Crowdfunder page for anyone who wishes to donate to the cause.
Once the bus is complete in spring 2025, it will tour the country and visit each of the chef’s locations, hosting a talk or demonstration for their community. It will also tour schools, festivals and events around the UK, with The Pony team on board offering access to valuable information on food origins, cooking, nutrition and sustainability practices.
Anyone can apply to use the bus once it is up and running, with no charge for schools or charities. The Pony team will work with the school or organisation to deliver interactive sessions relevant to the location, age of attendees and what produce is in season.
The Pony’s intention is to visit 25 schools a year, reaching 2,500 school children over the course of 2025. In addition, once a month, they hope to bring the bus to community groups and festivals to reach a diverse audience, working with charities and organisations such as the NHS.
To ‘help tackle the big issue of food education’, Josh and his sister Holly (who also co-owns The Pony), have looked to their friends around the UK to help. Launching this December, the event series ‘The Pony Farm Bus Fundraiser’ will see four chefs collaborate with Josh to prepare and serve a six-course feast at The Pony Group’s flagship restaurant.
Starting in December, the dinners will take place once a month with each chef taking three of the six courses on a collaborative menu with Josh, using produce from The Pony’s garden. The series will begin with Tom Kerridge on December 10, followed by Sally Abé on January 21, 2025, Angela Hartnett OBE on February 4, 2025, and Jude Kereama on March 18, 2025.
Tickets will cost £130 including six courses and a welcome drink, with 80 per cent of each ticket sale going towards the Farm Bus fund. Tickets for the dinners will be released in phases between now and January – the first is available to book now.
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The inspiration behind the bus
The Farm Bus was inspired by siblings Josh and Holly Eggleton’s existing community efforts across Bristol and Somerset, developed over 18 years since launching The Pony & Trap and building The Pony Group. During this time, they became increasingly aware of food insecurities and lack of educational opportunities in their local area, with rural and urban communities both facing their own challenges.
They have previously tackled the issue by founding initiatives in their hometown city of Bristol, such as The Anti-Banquet in February this year, which raised £100,000 for the Bristol Local Food Fund. Josh also founded Team Canteen, a community interest company spearheading numerous charity projects for food businesses and underrepresented communities, which will once again provide meals for the homeless in Bristol this Christmas.
In 2021, Josh was awarded an MBE for services to the community in Bristol during Covid-19, having founded Cheers Drive – the precursor to Team Canteen – in partnership with Caring in Bristol, to feed the city’s homeless three meals a day. In addition to this continued work, The Pony hosts local schools, community groups and food charity projects at the gardens and Cookery School about once a month, donating their space and time.
It has close ties with The MAZI Project, who use the school frequently and who started following a report commissioned by Caring in Bristol and in Hope, which found: “There are not enough services in the city to support people to develop food independence.”
With The Pony Farm Bus, they are keen to drive these efforts further afield; ‘sharing knowledge to empower the next generation and providing a platform to facilitate conversation. All while injecting some fun along the way’.
Josh and Holly said: “We understand that not everyone has access to one of our six sites, so it has been an idea of ours for ages to take our message and ethos on the road. We would love to see the bus busy and active, going out to the Southwest and beyond; but as important as the issue of food education is, we also want to keep this fun.”
“Immersing ourselves into the community is behind everything we do, and it’s been a real community effort getting the wheels of the Farm Bus in motion. As much as we’re looking forward to seeing it out and about in our local area, it will also be exciting for our teams to travel around the country, helping all sorts of groups.”
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