Rob helped set up River Nene Organic Vegetables - a box scheme supplying 8,000 homes in the Midlands and East Midlands - in 2004. This was after he left the Soil Association, where he worked as horticultural manager for eight years, building on his academic training as an entomologist.

• Where are you based?
  We are currently based in Yaxley, just south of Peterborough. However, we have just taken on the tenancy of a 500 acre farm near Stamford which is in the process of conversion. This will become our home sometime in the next year.

• Can you give a short history of how you got to where you are now, including why and when you 'went organic'?
  I am trained as an entomologist and I think it is probably this interest in insects and plants that lead me to organic growing. I knew I couldn't be one of those entomologists that spent their life staring down a microscope - I was always much keener to feel that what I had learned was something that could have some practical application.
  
  When you spend time studying the tiniest creatures and how they interact, organic growing starts to make absolute sense. You kill the life in the soil with pesticides and fertilisers; this leads to poorly nourished plants that are susceptible to pest and disease attack. You then use more pesticides to 'solve' the pest and disease problem - ending up trapped in a vicious circle.
  
  Having done research in the UK and Africa I decided that working with and supporting organic growers was the career I wanted to pursue. I was lucky enough to get a job with the Soil Association in 1998. I think they were desperate at the time – phones ringing non-stop and very few people to answer them. After eight truly enjoyable and rewarding years, I took the decision to leave the Soil Association to work with Guy Watson and the Riverford team to establish the new box scheme 'River Nene Organic Vegetables'.

• Can you describe a typical day in your life?
  We start pretty early – the first veg comes out of the cold store at 6.45am ready to be packed into the boxes. Fruit and veg are also coming in from the fields all through the day that need checking for quality – and of course taste (tough job but someone has to do it). We also spend a lot of time talking to the growers about the crops in the field, and planning the contents for the box for next week. It is always a delicate balance of what's ready for harvest, and what customers will be most excited with when the veg is unleashed in the kitchen. We try not to be too dogmatic – we know that there are limits to the excitement one family can get from swede, parsnips and kale if they receive them every week.
  
  In winter I also spend a lot of time planning next year's crops with the Nene Organic Growers Group based on our predictions for how well the boxes will sell. We try very hard to make sure that 80% of the box contents over the year are grown within the group.

• Who are your customers and where are they?
  Our customers span all backgrounds. They tend to share a passion for food and an enthusiasm for being connected with where their food comes from and how it is grown. All our customers live in the East Midlands, East Anglia and the Midlands.

• Organic principles – why do they matter?
  If we keep taking from the planet, in the end Mother Nature will bring us the bill. Global warming, decline in soil quality, decreased biodiversity are beginning to have real impacts on real people. We can no longer bury our head in the sand and expect a raft of miracle fixes to solve these problems. Organic principles are about taking greater responsibility for our actions and the implications of those actions on future generations. Every business and every individual should have them!

• What does the Soil Association mean to you?
  Pioneering, passionate, driven and considered. The Soil Association has been the conscience for food and farming in the UK for the last fifty years.

• What is your greatest achievement?
  I ran the London Marathon for the first time a few years ago raising money for a children's charity. It's hard work but the sense of achievement when you hobble over the finish line is out of this world.

• How do you plan to progress in the future? What is your vision?
  It is looking like being a big year for River Nene with the new farm and the new packhouse being built. The farm move is a massive thing for us and we are confident that by 2008 over 20,000 people each year will have the opportunity to visit us and enjoy our veg straight from the field. We are also launching a new box scheme called River Swale Organic Vegetables with growers in Yorkshire early in 2007.

• What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
  I hate questions like this because I never seem to have anything like the kind meaningful answer that the question invites.

• What is the key to your success?
  Hard work and an ability to break down what can seem like a fairly mountainous task into bite sized and manageable steps.

• What do you love most about what you do?
  Fantastic people – I have worked in the organic world nearly all of my working life and despite all the growth in the last 10 years I continue to be amazed at the passion and warm personalities of the people I meet. It makes every day a pleasure and makes it easy to stay motivated.

• What keeps you awake at night?
  Brussels sprouts – they play with your mind!

• What single thing would most improve your life?
  A mountain – they tend to be in short supply near Peterborough.

• What do you find most frustrating about what you do?
  Nature – it's a love/hate relationship. Finding out that flea beetle has devoured its way through a crop of rocket, or that the frost has killed off the spinach that was just about to be cut for the boxes can be frustrating.

• Any unusual hobbies or past careers?
  I was part of a team that controlled termites in a house in Devon – the only ever-recorded incidence of termites in the UK.

• How can the organic market be improved?
  Greater focus on getting practices closer to the principles – for instance, the removal of copper use from the standards. There also needs to be more media work at a local level, to keep raising awareness about the benefits of organic food and farming.
  
  We need to engage with the majority of the public. The perception of organic being high priced and middle-class needs to be broken down.

• What's the main benefit of being organic for you?
  A sense of reward. We feel very proud each day to know that thousands of people in our region are getting the best vegetables delivered to their door.

• What other organic ventures do you admire and why?
  Acorn Dairies near Darlington. This family dairy proves what can be done against the odds. At a time when organic milk prices were starting to drop, and the market was reporting an oversupply, the Tweddles invested in processing their own organic milk for door step deliveries while other organic milk suppliers considered throwing the towel in. Their bravery and hard work has paid off with thousands of homes nearby receiving their milk. They are an example to other farm businesses looking to gain greater control of their product and markets.

• Supermarkets – good or bad?
  Supermarkets bring organic food to the masses and some do a pretty good job. But their obsession with ever-cheaper food has been catastrophic for British farming, and has forced the family farm to the brink of extinction. The industrialisation of organic farming is a real threat to the integrity of organic food, and we all need to take some responsibility for making informed choices if we are to reverse this increasingly worrying trend.

• What is the biggest threat to what you do?
  It's not so much a threat as an obstacle. We really want families to enjoy cooking. In an age where convenience is king we are well aware that the thought of fresh fruit and veg straight from the field is not going to be everyone's cup of tea. I only hope that the plethora of food programmes and cookery books will start to rub off on people in the future.

• What's the best thing about organic farms?
  Insects, especially in May – come and visit us if you want to see what I mean.

• What's the best thing about organic food?
  It has spirit.

• What is your favourite meal?
  Lamb roast dinner - cooked well with good veg - I don't think you can beat it.

• If I was Prime Minister I would...
  Probably wish that I was growing organic vegetables rather than running the country. I would certainly make food and farming a more intrinsic part of learning on the national curriculum.

• I'd like to be remembered for...
  Any answer that you think of for this tends to feel like you are being a bit of a David Brent. I hope that I will have contributed to showing a lot of people that there are different and better ways of doing things.

• When were you happiest?
  I was an incredibly lucky child. My father was a civil engineer working on two to three contracts around the world so I got to live in some fantastic places. I think the two years spent in a remote part of Tanzania, when I was 7 years old, are my happiest – they certainly shaped what I am and what I do today.

• What is your greatest fear?
  Karaoke sober.

• What would be your 'Desert Island' luxury?
  A boat.

• Is the customer always right?
  No, we had a lovely customer who made rhubarb crumble out of Swiss chard! The rest of the times I have to confess they are usually right.