Extending to around 800 hectares of land the farm grows wheat, spring barley, maize, oilseed rape, beans, sugar beet and potatoes. Matt runs a suckler herd of 40 Stabiliser cattle and Meg keeps a small flock of Suffolk-cross sheep on the grassland across the farm.
Matt is a fourth-generation farmer and along with his dedicated team, strives to provide the highest quality produce to customers in the most environmentally sustainable way. The environment is a high priority across the farm, with recent investments in new woodland and innovative farming technology to help reduce the environmental impact of agriculture on the land.
We generate our electricity and heat from our Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system fuelled completely by woodchip, a fully renewable energy source. This power from the CHP is also used to provide the energy needed to make our gin.
Image © The Yorkshire Post
The power behind our production comes from our CHP plant located right on our farm, we use excess heat to power production and all excess energy is sold back to the grid, helping others purchase sustainable energy. Overtime we will be adding solar and wind to our power mix.
We are aiming to be the World’s first carbon-positive spirit company. This will see us sequestering more carbon than we produce and will put us at the forefront of the climate change crisis. We want to prove what is possible, leading the industry to enable others to follow.
Our gin is made from unwanted potatoes grown here at Balne Hall Farm, North Yorkshire.
Each year around 80 hectares of potatoes are grown and processed on the farm, with the majority of the crop going into the food chain for our customers to enjoy as chips.
The potato crop is planted in the Spring and carefully grown by our dedicated farm team. In the Autumn when the potatoes are harvested and graded, there are always a few that do not make the grade due to their size or shape.
On average 10% of the annual potato crop can end up as additional stock feed or go back onto the land to rot with the surplus soil waste. By using the waste potato crop to make gin, this creates a new use for these small, misshapen potatoes.
Each bottle of sustainable gin is made of 10 surplus potatoes that would otherwise have gone to waste.
Different varieties of potato are used to make our gin; Challenger, Sagitta and Ramos are all used to make our gin so delicious!
Conscious gin is the product of 4 long-time friends, Matt a farmer, Sam a stonemason, Phill a sustainability entrepreneur & Andy a Graphic Designer.
sat round a table one evening, enjoying a few drinks and chatting. We quickly established that Matt has an abundance of waste potatoes and there had to be something we could use them for. How could we give them value
Read moreWe take unloved potatoes that are wonky or too small to be sold and we give them some TLC by transforming them into our amazing premium small batch gin.
We separate them from the high quality potatoes, peel them and squeeze 10 unloved potatoes in every bottle of Conscious that normally would have gone to waste.
Read moreEverything we do is underpinned by the Circular Economy, the business as usual, linear, take, make, use, dispose economy is no longer fit for purpose.
Not only do we use surplus potatoes that would normally be destined for the waste pile, we also use clean energy from our on farm CHP power plant & have committed to using no single use plastics in our supply chain.
Read moreYou can buy us from the following amazing stockists
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Here at Conscious Co. we don’t just talk conscious, we live it. We believe that delicious Gin shouldn’t cost the earth, we are ushering a new era of fully sustainable spirit production.
Every aspect of our products and business model is meticulously thought through putting our customers, our planet and society first.
At Conscious Co. we live and breathe conscious business and collaboration. Every aspect of our operation is meticulously thought out with the planet in mind. We place collaboration over competition and seek to work with stakeholders to deliver mutually beneficial outcomes.
We are revolutionising how businesses utilise the assets around them. All of our products are produced from ingredients traditionally seen as worthless and normally destined for landfill. We use fresh, delicious, surplus food (think wonky veg, surplus and unsold fruits) to create tasty, premium and sustainable products.
Embedding the Circular Economy in our business.
Zero plastic, zero waste, zero compromise on quality & taste.
Join us!