In our twenties, my wife Ash and I spent a year cycling 12,500km through Africa. Rustic ‘farm stalls’ offered our exhausted bodies respite along the way. On Saturday mornings, we sipped freshly pressed apple juice against a backdrop of mountains and orchards with the smell of warm bread drifting over fruit crates packed with colour. 
 
The trip drew our attention to the importance of small cottage industries in Africa, which are lifelines for farmers and provide support for local communities.   
 
Fast forward a couple of decades, and with a combined 40 years of experience in management roles in hospitality, marketing and retail, we set about recreating this experience in the UK on a bigger scale. 
 
Our dream was to build an environmentally-sound, eco-destination farm store, which would support and celebrate the wonderful community of producers and craftspeople in Somerset and beyond. We also wanted to connect visitors to the spirit of the area.  
 
Aimed at both journey-makers and the local community, TEALS is more than a traditional stop-off; it’s a destination in itself. Our vision is for TEALS to be a place you factor into your journey, an experience that is vibrant, colourful, and imaginative.  
 
Our timing though, was pretty bad. We broke ground in January shortly before the pandemic hit, which meant that almost the entire build was completed during or between lockdowns. This allowed us to make nimble adaptations, though, to enable better social distancing. A spacious internal layout includes a one-way system for shoppers and a mezzanine level was created for diners.  
 
Both Ash and I are steadfast in our commitment to sustainability. All products sold at TEALS are responsibly sourced with sustainability in mind, our packaging is almost fully recyclable, and we work with carefully chosen farmers and suppliers with strong ethics who care for the planet. Furthermore, the TEALS business model is specifically designed to minimise food waste, our team is careful to use the entirety of ingredients, compost and make any food coming to its natural end available to local food banks. 
 
When we introduce e-charging next spring, TEALS will be the first single use, plastic free, fuel-free, electric car charging point on the A303.  
 
Working with local architects, we ensured that the design and implementation of TEALS was also in line with our commitment to sustainability. We chose high recyclable materials which also look good in the context of their environment; steel and reclaimed timber were used due to their greener production credentials and where possible, materials were salvaged and repurposed.  
 
During the building of TEALS, wildlife corridors were preserved, soil was reused from foundations to create new habitats; hundreds of trees were planted and metres of meadow were sewn.  
 
Ash and I ultimately wish to positively impact the environment and make a wider contribution to the local community and producers. We feel a real responsibility here to open a window to the region, be ambassadors for brilliant producers, operate responsibly and look after our guests like they were friends of friends.  
 
TEALS is our canvas on which to promote amazing things created by brilliant people we love to represent. If we don’t believe a product will add colour to our customers’ lives, why do it?