Community Work
We are passionate about our ice cream and the whole manufacturing process from “cow to cone”. We regularly do weekday tours of the ice cream factory for groups, but as you can imagine they are very popular and we get very booked up.
The tours usually last 1.30hr and include not only a tour of the ice cream factory, but also some free samples to try and the opportunity to buy any flavour (26 to choose from) of ice cream or sorbet at factory prices. The tours have to be limited to 30 due to the size of the factory – it is housed in converted farm buildings the groups also need to be sure footed as there are steps and trip hazards! We do not charge for the tours but ask for a donation to a local charity which we support – Send a Cow (http://www.sendacow.org.uk).
For more details or to apply for a tour please contact – dawn@marshfield-icecream.co.uk!
2nd Bath Trefoil Guild
18th April 2012 - the most memorable tour so far - the 27 ladies of the Trefoil Guild started like any other tour - in the kitchen listening and asking questions on Marshfield ice cream history - all good, then to the factory tour - all going well until one member felt slightly dizzy and made a sharp exit - next thing we have an ambulance appearing in the yard! Luckily it was all quickly resolved and the lady in question made a full recovery after the paramedics checked her over! Honestly the lengths people will go to not to taste our ice cream. All ended well with the paramedics sent back to base with some ice cream. Dramatic eh? never a dull moment here!
Bromham Wives Club
17th April 2012 - had a great bunch of ladies from Bromham for an ice cream tour. Really fun group who asked lots of interesting questions. They were quite the connoisseurs of ice cream(one of them even makes her own vanilla) they really liked the Honey and Stem ginger which they cleared our shop out of at the end of a very enjoyable night. I think they enjoyed them selves as well as I got a lovely email the next day from their organiser Debs - thank you so much for a really interesting and entertaining evening, it was a real pleasure to meet you.
Ridgeway After School Club
April 2nd 2012 - we had a visit during the Easter holidays from The Ridgeway after school club, manager Mary had previously been on a trip with her Rainbows so knew the form - after a trip round the farm and a sneaky peek into the factory we headed for a long tasting session in the kitchen - yum!
Wick Primary School
14th March 2012- Year 1 primary class from local village Wick came to visit Marshfield Farm on a field trip. They were too young to take into the factory but they did the whole "cow to cone" experience visiting the calves the milking parlour seeing the silage and our alternative energy source the solar panels. We even made some of our own ice cream in the kitchen using some of our mix from the factory - we made some delicious raspberry dairy ice cream; They sent the loveliest thank you letter which have been put up in the ice cream office.
Marshfield Brownies
12th March 2012 - We had the only Girl Guiding group from Marshfield our local village round for a tour of the ice cream. Lovely bunch of girls who know their Marshfield ice cream - they've been eating and supporting us for years!nLets hope this becomes and annual event for the troop.
Clevedon Community School A level Field Trip
8th February 2012 - Alexis Thomas organised for her A level Geography students to come on a field trip to Marshfield Farm to talk about diversification, watch the ice cream being made and of course eat some samples of the cold stuff.
All of us here wish them all good luck in their exams
Everyman theatre - front of house team
.Sunday 28th January - the lovely front of house team from the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham came to visit us. Cold as it was they were determined to see the cows and calves and get the full farm tour. We fuelled them first with some Scroppino - a cocktail made with our lemon sorbet, vodka and prosecco. They also toured the ice cream factory to see where all those mini tubs that they sell are filled and packed.
We loved having them all down and hope they come again next year.
Woodland Grove Elderly Peoples home
17th January 2012 - visited the Woodland Grove Elderly peoples home - they aim to bring as much of the outside community into the care home to help their residents who have difficulty getting out and about feel part of what is going on in the outside world. i headed down to the home and got a lovely warm welcome and I can honestly say Ive NEVER seen so much ice cream sampled - they were so game they tried every flavour!
North Somerset Young Farmers
14th November 2011 A group of Young Farmers came to visit on a misty cold November night but that didnt put them off Sarah who organised the trip sent an email afterwards thanking us - " i would like to say a huge thankyou for allowing us to come and visit last night. It was very interesting, and all the members said how much they enjoyed it. Thank you for giving up your time to show us around and talk to us about your business. The ice cream was lush and we enjoyed tasting it. Thank you for letting us try some samples" They were very generous with their donation to Send a Cow - £150 WOW. They also left me a calendar they have produced for next year - yes one of those WI naked ones but farmer style!!
Monkton Combe School GCSE Business Studies
8th November 2011
Two group of business study GCSE students split their time between Marshfield Bakery and the ice cream to learn about how our businesses started and how they have grown. Their teacher Mr Campbell sent the following email "Thank you so much (yet again) for a fantastic trip around Marshfield ice cream! Your passion for the ice cream really comes through and the pupils listen to every word you say. They were talking about it on the way home and they really like the way your business operates. It has given us a huge amount of material to discuss in lessons."
Ralph Allen School AS Geography Students
7th November 2011
Two groups of AS geography students from Ralph Allen school in Bath came for their annual trip to the ice cream and our neighbours Marshfield Bakery to learn more about rural diversification. As ever they were an asset to the school asking lots of interesting questions and even looking like they enjoyed the samples of ice cream. Extra special was the cake they produced for for one of their class mates for their birthday - delicious sponge cake - home made and not bought at the bakery!!Looking forward to seeing the Geography department next year!!
Olveston Young Farmers Club
10th October 2011
A large group of young farmers came for a tour of the ice cream factory on a wet dark night BUT it didn't stop them tramping across the yard in their fetching white coats and hair nets!! They even took lots of ice cream home as well!!
Hazel Pritchards Church Group
6th October 2011 Hazel Pritchard brought a small group of friends from her church for a tour of the facilities, they were a lovely group and donated hugely to Send a Cow our charity of choice. Following is an excerpt from the email she sent after the tour "I would like to say thank you for your time the other evening, we enjoyed the evening very much and i have had positive feed backs. Hope money raised helped to send a cow of to uganda."
Footloose Group
6th October 2011
During the day Dorothy Smith brought a lovely group of women who have regular outings to see the ice cream being made - they were lucky enough to try some fresh off the machine. The following is an excerpt from her thank you email to us. "I just wanted to thank you for making our tour so enjoyable. Everyone of the Footloose members thanked me for organising it and said what a lovely time they had had – completely different from the usual museums etc."
Melksham Oak Community School
3rd October 2011
Head of Business Studies at Melksham Community school Sean Malough brought 15 A level business and economics students. One of their key topics is the role of the entrepreneur and the production processes. They learned more about the premium pricing linked to quality and then they had a short question and answer session to cover the benefits and problems of running your own business and how the business has expanded over the years. We wish them all well in their exams!
Corsham Chamber of Commerce
3rd November 2011 A small group from Corsham Chamber of Commerce came to visit the farm and actually got the founder of the business to show them round. they sent the following email and photo "Thank Will for giving up his time to talk to us this morning, and for his hospitality and sharing your experiences of the history of the farm and your excellent product."
Frocester W.I.
15th September 2011 A group from Frocester W.I. came to visit and Carole who organised the trip sent the following email - "I just wanted to say Thank You for making our visit to the Ice Cream Factory so pleasant and interesting, I think I speak for everyone when I say how much we enjoyed the afternoon, and the tastings!!!"
Larkhall Monday Club
15th August 2011 - Larkhall Monday Club arrived for a tour of the farm and ice cream on a wet and blustery Summers! night. Pearl who organised the tour sent the following email - " thank you so much for Monday evening. Your enthusiasm amd sense of humour were infectious.Everyone enjoyed the visit enormously" but unfortunately they all got stuck at the end of the farm track till late in the evening whilst an accident was cleared up!! They had to eat all their ice cream before it melted!!
Dyrham and Hinton W.I.
11th August 2011 I've taken this from the Dyrham and Hinton Community Website "Twenty-four members, guests and men, visited Marshfield Ice Cream. It was the biggest turn out for years. I wonder why! Our hosts were Dawn & Will who gave a duet on the history of Marshfield Ice Cream. We then put on protective clothing and went to see how the ice cream was made. Dawn took us through the process. Then back to the farm house for the real business of the evening: tasting five flavours of ice cream. All flavours hit the spot. Some (men) asked for seconds or even thirds. All then descended on the shop for further samples to take home. Thank you Dawn and Will for a great evening. You can’t believe how keen Dawn and Will are on Marshfield Ice Cream, well, almost as keen as we were!
Clevedon Trefoil Guild
5th July 2011 - Trefoil Guild is part of Girlguiding UK and its members are in the main retired Guides and Guiders . They were taking part in a challenge as part of the 100th anniversary of Guiding, and the visit came under the heading of "Chilling". Patricia Manning from the Trefoil Guild sent a lovely email after the visit "A huge huge thank you from Clevedon Trefoil Guild for making us so welcome yesterday and for giving us such an interesting tour and tasting at Marshfield Farm Icecream. We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and in particular everyone commented on your enthusiasm and passion for your product - you are an amazing ambassador for Marshfield Farm Icecream!! " Which was nice!
Gloucester Young Farmers
7th July 2011 - A small but lively group from Gloucester came to see how it was all made on the farm - hopefully we did'nt make it look too easy! Will and I met through Young Farmers so we love having them round!! Katrina sent a lovely email afterwards thanking us. "On behalf of gloucester yfc i would like to say a huge thank you for giving us a great talk and letting us try your fabulous ice cream! I am really sorry but forgot to put money in your charity pot so we shall send it to you! i am currently sat eating some tutti frutti and blackberry beauty :) "
4th Chipping Sodbury Brownies
30th June 2011, a lovely bunch of brownies from Chipping Sodbury came and looked round the ice cream factory and farm. There was a lot of fun had by all in the barn with loads of free samples eaten!
4th Westerleigh Brownies
14th June 2011
The next bunch of Brownies from Westerleigh came for a farm and ice cream tour. They were fabulously well behaved! They were celebrating their centenary year of the Brownie and Girl Guide movement by visiting somewhere cold!
Silverhill School, Winterbourne
21st June 2011
Year 3 and 4 from Silverhill came to visit to learn all about organic farming, sustainability and ice cream production. After sampling some of our flavours - Caramel fudge in clotted cream, Heavenly honeycomb and Chocolate Fudge Brownie the majority couldnt decide which flavour was their favourite!! The adults got to taste some fresh of the ice cream machine - Clotted Cream! Their teacher sent a lovely email afterwards saying "The children benefitted so much from all the education and information they received and we would certainly like a visit to be an annual event" we hope so too!!
Bath and Bristol Inter Varsity Club
9th June 2011
A large group of proffesional couples and singles came for a tour - with an ex dairy farmer amongst their group there was some farming discussions thrown in as well. Lots of ice cream sampled and bought and the new kitten finished off the left overs!
Gastard Wednesday Group
11th May 2011 - 15 people from the local area came for our tour and sampling they showed great interest in the self sustainability of ice cream and farm. the Cointreau and Orange was voted a winning flavour that night.
Emmaus Church - Yorkie Group
6th April 2011 An all male group who didnt have anything better to do on a Friday night in April came for one of our icecream factory tours. A good laugh was had by all and they even had an extended tour taking in the milking parlour. A quote from Colin Wide the organiser who emailled the next day – “What a great evening! all the men enjoyed the farming side, the machinery, the systems, the organisation and finally the tasting. Thanks for your entertaining presentation. My wife and I have enjoyed Marshfield ice-creams for many years and will continue to do so.” They have also sent a very generous cheque of £65 to the local charity which we support Send a Cow.
Westerleigh Guides
19th April 2011 – A great bunch of girls came to tour the factory before having a day out at the National Trust Dyrham Park across the road. They even got to see the vet at work on the farm checking to see if any of our cows were in calf. The Chocolate fudge brownie was voted the top flavour they tried that day! They also gave us a fabulous donation of £30 to our favourite charity – Send a Cow http://www.sendacow.org.uk/
Marshfield Brownies and Rainbows
4th April 2011 – Our most local group of Brownies and Rainbows all came together for a tour of the ice cream. Flo our daughter helps with the Rainbows so was keen to show them her farm! They all enjoyed eating a lot of ice cream!
South Cotswold Ranger Guides
19th January 2011 – Heather Page the Rangers Guider sent the following email “Thank you so much for the time you gave up to talk to the Rangers and show them around. It was especially interesting to hear you talk about the pros and cons of running your own business and the pressures small businesses are under. This will certainly be food for thought for the girls as they start to plan their careers. The ice cream is absolutely delicious and you should be very proud of such a lovely product.
Clevedon Trefoil Guild
16th November - a small but energetic group of ladies came to look round the ice cream factory. Patricia Manning their secretary wrote to us afterwords saying "A huge huge thank you from Clevedon Trefoil Guild for making us so welcome yesterday and for giving us such an interesting tour and tasting at Marshfield Farm Icecream. We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves". They certainly did, one of them described the ice cream they were sampling as 'orgasmic!. I cant tell you which flavour it was you will just have to find that out for yourselves!
Monkton Combe GCSE Business Studies
9th November - a group of keen business studies students came to learn the nuts and bolts of starting up in business, hopefully we inspired them and didn't put them off with our disaster stories of when we first started - like the batch of ice cream that came out bright luminous green!
Ralph Allen AS Geography
8th November - two groups of students from this local school came for a tour and to ask questions regarding rural re development, they also visited our local friends up at Marshfield Bakery and visited the village of Marshfield - they rolled out of the kitchen having eaten bakery bars and ice cream all morning. They loved the Chocolate fudge brownie ice cream that we make using Marshfield Bakery Brownies - one pupil liked it so much he ended up licking out the pot !!!
1st and 3rd Westerleigh Rainbows
23rd Septmber - this gaggle of pink clad rainbows visited the farm to see how we make ice cream. They visited the milking parlour, saw some new born calves, feed some of our recently harvested organic corn to the farm chickens and then tried some ice cream. The Toffee Fudge flavour was the out and out winner!
1st Chipping Sodbury Brownies
Another keen bunch of Brownies aiming to get their Centenary badge by visiting somewhere cold, came to visit and tour the ice cream factory - they kindly donated £20 to our charity Send a Cow who we give all tour fees to. If you would like to know more then please visit; www.sendacow.org.uk
2nd Westerleigh Rainbows
9th September - A small group of Rainbows and their helpers came to visit the farm on a gorgeous September afternoon. They were too small to go round the ice cream factory but had a tour of the farm to see the cows, calves, organic crops which we have just harvested and of course they finished off with some ice cream. They were very lucky they saw twin calves just minutes old and got to name them - Rainbow and Westie!! The photo shows them tucking into a fresh off the machine vanilla ice cream - the best way to have it!!
Bradley Stoke W.I.
18th August 2010 - 22 ladies from local Bristol branch of the WI came for a tour. I think we spent more time talking dairy farming and wind turbines (we have a Wind open day coming up on 12th September) than ice cream. They tried a few flavours and helped with some suggestions for next year's ice cream flavour - blueberry; rhubarb and custard; pineapple were all suggested.
Avon Country Link
5th August 2010 - a lovely mix of adults and children. They tried our latest Great Taste Award winner - Mango sorbet.
Fosseway Townswomen Guild
15th June 2010 - We gave a talk at the Guild’s regular meeting at the Foxhill Community Centre in Bath. They gave us a very warm reception, asked us lots of questions and even tasted some of the ice cream. We donated our speaker’s fee of £25 to RICE, the Guild’s current nominated charity. RICE (www.rice.org.uk) funds research into the ageing process and offers help and support to sufferers of Alzheimer’s and other memory problems, and their families.
Coalpit Heath Cookery Circle
8th July 2010 - These ladies certainly know their food! On a factory tour and ice cream sampling session, they gave us a new suggestion for an ice cream dessert, which was to use our strawberry ice cream or the clotted cream in an Eton Mess Pudding.
Saltford WI
23rd June 2010 – Salford WI visited us for a factory tour and to sample our ice cream. We got a lovely email afterwards from Sylvia Dando, who organised the whole trip: “What a lovely afternoon we all had yesterday. The information you gave us on how Marshfield Ice Cream developed was really interesting. I think we were all surprised at the heat when we went into the production area - some had brought an extra jacket to combat the anticipated cold! The enthusiasm and appreciation of the ice cream was very apparent at the tasting session and we were glad to have brought cool bags with us!”
Swainswick Ladies
10th June 2010 – 25 ladies old and young from the Larkhall, Swainswick and Tadwick areas of Bath came for a factory tour, a talk and to sample our ice cream.
Oaksey WI
13th May 2010 - Oaksey WI came for a talk and a tour of our factory. They lapped up the free samples and bought lots of ice cream to take home. Blackcurrants in Clotted Cream was the biggest hit!
Bitton Church Group
28th April 2010 –The Group visited our factory for a fun ice cream tour.
Clevedon Community School
The school’s A-Level Geography students visited to learn more about diversification of farming, and what a great bunch they were! After being grilled by them about farming, going organic, why ice cream etc., we took them round the factory and filled them up with ice cream! Their teacher emailed the following response: "I have just had THE most amazing response to a field trip. I was mobbed by everyone buzzing about the trip saying they had a great time, how lovely you and Will were (echoed by my wife and I from the TASTE visit), learnt loads and how they were having ice cream parties tonight to consume the huge tubs! What an end to the term. Thank you so much - it has, in the words of the students, 'been the best trip whilst at school!'"
Westerleigh Brownie pack
3rd March 2010 - The Westerleigh Brownie pack were working towards their ‘Adventure 100’ badge and had to do something cold! So their pack leader Fawn brought them to sample our ice cream and to see what it felt like in our minus 26C freezer. I hope they all got their badge! They all ate lots of ice cream and enjoyed our Caramel Fudge in Clotted Cream flavour the best.
Chippenham Young Farmers
24th February 2010 – A group of 30 young farmers, aged 15 and up, came for a tour and ice cream sampling session. They loved our new flavour, Cheeky Choccy Cherry!
Monkton Combe 6th formers
5th November 2009 - Monkton Combe Sixth Formers’ Business Studies group visited us to share our experience of marketing and setting up a business.
Ralph Allen School
15th October 2009 – The school’s A-Level Geography students visited us to learn about how rebranding and diversifying can make rural businesses like us more successful.
Kingswood Rotary
29th September 2009 – The club’s members came to try our ice cream visit and enjoy a factory tour.
Farrington Gurney Young Farmers Club
21st September 2009 – The club came to taste our delicious ice cream and tour our farm.
Open day
19th September 2009 – We opened up the farm for ice cream factory tours, in association with South Gloucester’s Food & Farming Month and their Buy Local campaign.
Countryside Alliance
5th September 2009 – We got involved in the Alliance’s fundraiser in Marlborough.
Sodbury Vale Young Farmers Club
18th August 2009 – The club members came to sample our ice cream and tour our factory.
Monkton Coombe School
15th June 2009 – A group of GCSE Business Studies pupils came to learn about how our factory works.