From 'Not Making a Lot of Money' to 300,000 Pumpkins and 8,000 Visitors a Day: 12 Farmer Copleys Lessons Any Farmer Can Steal
On a crisp Saturday morning in December 2003, a young farming couple in West Yorkshire unlocked the door of a very small farm shop and hoped somebody would walk in.
They had a butchery counter, a few shelves, and a card machine that none of them had ever used. They hadn't even finished working out what to charge for the vegetables. Friends turned up to help, which was lucky, because without them the shop might not have made it to a second day. And it was two weeks before Christmas, which, as co-owner Heather Copley later joked, was hardly the calmest moment to launch anything.
Fast forward to today. That same farm grows more than 300,000 pumpkins for a festival Farmers Weekly has called the biggest in the UK. It plants over a million tulips for a spring festival that was named Rural/Farming Event of the Year at the 2025 Yorkshire Post Rural Awards. Its farm shop has been crowned Large Farm Shop of the Year by the Farm Retail Association. On peak festival days, up to 8,000 people come through the gate. And more than 5,200 people have left it a Google review, averaging 4.4 stars.
The farm is called Farmer Copleys. And before any of this happened, Rob Copley has described it as "just a plain arable/dairy farm, not making a lot of money."
Read that line again. Because if your farm is in the same place right now, this case study was written for you.
I host paying visitors on my own durian farm, and I have spent years studying the farms that crack the visitor code. Most success stories you read online are vague. "Work hard. Follow your passion." Useless. This one is different. Over more than 20 years of interviews, award entries and their own published history, the Copleys have been unusually open about what they did, what they spent, what went wrong and what they would do again. I have pulled all of it into one place, cross-checked the numbers, and boiled it down into 12 lessons you can use on your own land, no matter how small your farm is or where in the world you farm.
Grab a coffee. This is the long version, and it is worth every minute.
What you will learn in this case study ✅ How a 120-acre family farm became one of the UK's best-known agritourism destinations ✅ The exact order they built things in (this matters more than you think) ✅ The "pumpkin money loop" that gets one field paid seven different ways ✅ How they handled 12-mile queues, a £200,000 budget overrun and a pandemic ✅ A scaled-down version of the playbook for a small farm, with a 90-day plan |
Farmer Copleys at a Glance
Fact | Detail |
Location | Ravensknowle Farm, Pontefract Road, between Pontefract and Featherstone, West Yorkshire, England |
Owners | Rob and Heather Copley, a husband-and-wife team |
In the family since | 1967, although the Copleys have farmed locally for well over a century |
Farm shop opened | 12 December 2003 |
Land | A 120-acre holding when bought in 1967. Farmers Weekly reported a 39-hectare working farm in 2018 |
What they sell | Farm shop, butchery, bakery and deli, Moo Café, Copleys Kitchen gelato and preserves, online shop, events and venue hire, a holiday let and seasonal pick-your-own festivals |
Signature events | Tulip Festival (spring), Sunflower Field (summer), Pumpkin Festival (autumn), FarmTrax Music Festival, fireworks and a festive market |
Team | Grew from 36 to 80 people around the 2016 to 2018 expansion |
Top awards | FRA Large Farm Shop of the Year and Pick Your Own of the Year (2024). Best Large Farm Shop and Best Retailer in the North of England, Farm Shop & Deli Awards (2025). Rural/Farming Event of the Year (2025) |
Google rating | 4.4 stars from 5,229 reviews (October 2026) |
The Origin Story: Two Farm Advisors Who Couldn't Buy Good Local Food
Here is the part of the story most people skip. It is also the most important part.
Rob grew up on Ravensknowle Farm. His grandfather, Ernest Copley, bought it in 1967: 120 acres, a rundown farmhouse and fields that needed taming. For decades it grew wheat, barley, potatoes, turnips and peas, and reared young cattle for a nearby dairy herd. Rob left in 1989 and built a career in the breeding and feeding of livestock. Heather became an agronomist, advising farmers on arable and forage crops. Both of them spent their working days on other people's farms.
And that is exactly where they spotted the gap.
Even with their contacts among the best farmers in the region, they struggled to buy good, locally produced food. As they tell it in their own published history, that raised an obvious question: if two farm advisors couldn't find it, what chance did everyone else have? This was the early 2000s, before farm shops and the local food movement had really taken off.
When Heather became pregnant, they decided to come home to raise their children on the farm, and to stop the farm from being sold. But it had to earn its keep. They looked at the usual diversification ideas, including paintballing and soft play. Then they asked a better question: what are we actually passionate about? The answer was food. The farm shop won.
The insight most farmers miss They did not start with "what can I build on my land?" They started with "what is missing for customers that we are uniquely placed to supply?" Two farm advisors who knew the best producers in Yorkshire were perfectly placed to sell great local food. Ask yourself the same question: what do people near you struggle to find that your farm, your skills or your contacts make easy for you? |
The response surprised even them. Heather has said they expected a customer or two. Instead, customers kept coming, and the farm says many of those first customers still shop there more than two decades later. By November 2009 the shop had been extended and Rob had left his job with a York animal-feed company to work in the business full time. Their skills complemented each other: what one was good at, the other wasn't, and vice versa.
The Numbers Behind the Growth
Before we get to the lessons, look at the scale. Numbers don't lie, and these ones tell a story.
In 2016, FarmingUK reported that the farm had grown 90,000 pumpkins across 25 varieties. In 2018, Farmers Weekly counted 135,000 planted. In 2021, Heather put the figure at around 200,000 across 27 varieties. In 2023 the local press reported more than 250,000 across 44 varieties. For the 2026 festival, the farm says it has grown more than 300,000 pumpkins in over 40 varieties.
That is more than a threefold increase in ten years, from a festival that was already among the biggest in the country at the start of that period.
The visitors followed the pumpkins. Farmers Weekly reported up to 8,000 visitors a day during October in 2018, with families travelling from as far as Liverpool and Newcastle. In 2021, Heather said the festival was welcoming around 5,000 people a day, many of them staying for most of the day. Speaking to Living North in 2022, Rob said the patch had roughly doubled in size every year until the farm reached its limit.
Now here is the number that should make every farmer sit up. In 2016, Rob told FarmingUK that the farm doesn't wholesale any of the crop. Around 99% of the pumpkins were sold at the farm gate as pick-your-own, with the last 1% going through the farm shop.
Think about what that means. Zero middlemen. No supermarket buyer squeezing the price. Every pumpkin sold at retail value to a customer who also paid to get in, bought lunch, took photos that marketed the farm for free, and walked through a farm shop on the way out.
That is the difference between farming a commodity and farming an experience.
The 12 Lessons Every Farmer Can Steal From Farmer Copleys
This is the heart of the case study. Every lesson ends with a short "Steal this" action you can use on your own farm, whatever its size.
Lesson 1: Start Small, Start With What You Love, and Start Before You Feel Ready
Farmer Copleys did not launch with a café, a festival field and a function room. It launched with one small room and a butchery counter, opened in a hurry before Christmas, with the vegetable prices not quite worked out.
The couple compare their opening day to the build-it-and-they-will-come idea from the film Field of Dreams. But notice what they built. Not a theme park. A shop selling the thing they were passionate about and knew better than almost anyone: good local food.
Every layer you see today, the café, the festivals, the production kitchen and the holiday let, came later. Each one was added on top of something that was already making money.
Steal this Pick the ONE thing you can sell to the public in the next 60 days with what you already have: a farm stall, a tasting, a tour or a small pick-your-own patch. Launch it imperfectly. You will learn more from your first 50 customers than from a year of planning. |
Lesson 2: Steal Shamelessly From Other Countries, Then Make It Local
Between 2006 and 2009, with a few competing farm shops opening around them, the Copleys did something most farmers never do. They went looking for ideas outside their own industry and outside their own country. They travelled mainly to the USA, where farmers' markets were full of theatre and interaction between farmers and visitors.
Those trips produced Moo Café, a corn maze, pick-your-own soft fruit and, most importantly, the pumpkin festival. Rob has said plainly that the pumpkin idea came from visiting farms in America.
But here is the clever part. They didn't copy it blindly. Heather explained to Farmers Weekly that they took the American pumpkin festival and gave it a thoroughly British twist: the star was the pumpkin itself, not Halloween. That framing let them talk about where food comes from, and it kept the event wholesome rather than spooky, which matters when your core customers are young families.
They have never stopped doing this. After a visit to the Netherlands in spring 2025, Heather came home inspired by canal-boat photo spots for the Tulip Festival. The same year, Rob and Heather took a research trip to Australia to help shape the next phase of the business.
Steal this Book one "idea trip" a year, even if it is only to the three best farm attractions within a day's drive. Take photos, note the prices and count the cars in the car park. Then ask: how would this work on MY farm, for MY customers, in MY culture? |
Lesson 3: Sell the Experience, Not the Crop
A pumpkin in a supermarket is a commodity. A pumpkin you chose yourself, from a field of 300,000 in 40 colours and shapes, after a tractor ride, with your kids in fancy dress, is a memory. People pay very differently for those two things.
The festival's pricing shows how this works. Visitors buy an entry ticket, then pay for their pumpkins on top, priced by size. In 2018 the local press reported pumpkins costing £3 to £9 each. The ticket pays for the experience. The pumpkin is the souvenir.
The same thinking runs through the shop. When the Farm Retail Association named Farmer Copleys Large Farm Shop of the Year in 2024, its judges noted that the majority of the shop's sales came from goods it produces itself. That is margin a reseller never sees.
If you want to go deeper on building one flagship attraction, read my guide to the signature experience formula.
Steal this Write down your main crop. Now write five ways a visitor could experience it: pick it, taste it, learn about it, cook it and photograph it. Charge for the experience, and sell the crop as the take-home souvenir. |
Lesson 4: Turn a Quick Stop Into a Whole Day Out
Rob has made a sharp point about family days out. At a soft play centre, he observed, parents tend to sit with a cup of tea while the children run off on their own. That isn't really a family day out. At the pumpkin festival, everybody takes part together, and he believes that is a big reason people love it.
Look at what has been on offer around the field over the years: tractor rides through the pumpkins, archery, vintage fairground rides, witches' storytime, walkabout characters, birds of prey and sheep shows, daily fancy dress competitions, street food, a Pumpkin Bar and live music. In 2026, the ticket time slot is simply an arrival time. Visitors can stay as long as they like until closing.
Why does that matter commercially? Because time on site equals spend on site. A family that stays for five hours eats lunch, buys drinks, grabs a gelato, picks more pumpkins and walks through the shop. A family that stays for 40 minutes does none of that.
Steal this List everything a family could do on your farm. If the list runs out in under two hours, add low-cost activities: a hay-bale trail, a height board, a storytime, a mini tractor ride or a kids' trail sheet. Each one adds dwell time, and dwell time adds spend. |
Lesson 5: Design Every Corner for the Camera
Rob has openly described the festival as a very Instagrammable event and said the team knows visitors want the perfect picture as much as the perfect pumpkin. The local press has gone as far as calling it the UK's most Instagrammable pumpkin patch.
So they build photo spots on purpose: the famous Pumpkin House, a vintage Chevy truck, a "How Tall This Fall" height board, a spooky graveyard scene, a boat on the waves, and new backdrops every season. There are even photo opportunities for dogs.
Every one of those photos is a free advert, posted by a happy customer, to friends who live within driving distance. That is marketing money can't buy.
Look closely at the height board. It is a tiny, cheap idea with a powerful effect. Families measure their children against it every autumn, which gives them a reason to come back next year and see how much the kids have grown. That is a repeat-visit engine disguised as a photo prop.
For practical tips, see what actually works on Instagram for agritourism.
Steal this Build three photo spots before your next season: one big "hero" backdrop with your farm name on it, one fun prop such as an old truck, tractor or cart, and one "come back next year" idea like a height board. Put your social media handle on all three. |
Lesson 6: Fix the Queue With Advance Tickets, and Get Paid Before the Gate Opens
Success brings a problem nobody warns you about. According to Living North, a few years before 2022 the queue to get into the pumpkin festival stretched for 12 miles.
Twelve miles of cars is not a good customer experience. It annoys neighbours, frustrates families and caps how many people you can actually serve.
The fix was to make it a ticketed event. Today every ticket is booked online in advance, with timed arrival slots, peak and off-peak prices, free entry for children aged three and under, and carers' days when one carer goes free. Weekend slots regularly sell out.
Look at what this does for the business:
Cash arrives before the event, not on the day
Peak and off-peak prices nudge some families towards quieter days, spreading the load
Staffing can be planned around known numbers
The farm learns who its customers are, which makes next year's marketing easier
If you are worried about ticketing costs, read how small farms can sell event tickets without losing money on fees. For setting the price itself, see the best way to set entry fees and ticket pricing.
Steal this Even if you only expect 50 visitors, sell tickets online in advance with time slots. Make the busiest slot slightly more expensive. You will cut no-shows, smooth out the crowds and know exactly how many people to prepare for. |
Lesson 7: Make One Crop Pay You Seven Times
This is my favourite lesson, because it is pure profit thinking. Put together everything the farm has described publicly, and you get what I call the pumpkin money loop.
Follow the pumpkin. It earns money through the ticket. It earns again when the visitor buys it by size. Visitors spend on food and drink while they are there. Their photos market next year's festival for free. And in October, Rob has said, the farm shop fills up with everything pumpkin: cakes, soup, lattes and sausages.
Then comes the part that made me smile. After the festival, Farmers Weekly reported, the farm's pigs were turned out to eat around 10,000 leftover pumpkins. The pumpkin-fed pork and sausages were then sold in the farm shop ahead of Christmas.
Leftover stock that most farms would write off became a premium Christmas product with a story attached. That is waste turned into margin.
For more ways to lift spend from every visitor, read upsells that double your agritourism revenue without more visitors.
Steal this Take your main crop and map every possible way to sell it: entry, pick-your-own, cooked on site, processed into a product, fed to livestock or turned into a gift. Circle the two you can add this year. |
Lesson 8: Own a Season, Then Add Another One
The biggest weakness of a pumpkin patch is obvious: it lasts about five weeks. Farmer Copleys solved that by stacking seasonal events across the calendar until the farm stayed busy all year round.
The newest and most impressive example is the Tulip Festival. It debuted in 2024. In 2025 the farm planted around 517,000 bulbs across more than eight acres and won Rural/Farming Event of the Year. For 2026 it doubled to more than a million tulips, with tickets from £8, a pick-your-own tulip garden, photo spots, a gift shop and food and drink. And for spring 2027, the farm is opening a second site, York Tulip Fields, complete with a working windmill.
Notice the pattern. They proved the format on their own land, scaled it hard once the demand was clear, then took it to a second location. That is how a farm event becomes a brand.
Around the tulips and pumpkins sit a summer sunflower field, the FarmTrax music festival in July, live music nights in October, fireworks on the first of November, a craft and artisan festive market and Christmas trading in the shop. Earlier calendars also included a corn maze, pick-your-own strawberries, a circus and a liquorice festival celebrating Pontefract's famous root crop. Not every event stays forever, and that is fine.
For more ideas, see ideas for year-round events to keep your farm busy and planning a spring blossom festival on your farm.
Steal this Master one season first. Once it sells out, add a second season that uses the same car park, toilets, ticketing system and team. Your fixed costs stay roughly the same while your earning window doubles. |
Lesson 9: Build the Daily Engine Before You Chase the Big Events
Festivals get the headlines. But look closely and you will see what really holds Farmer Copleys together: a farm shop, butchery, bakery, deli and café that open seven days a week.
I call this the Copley Stack. The bottom layer is the daily footfall engine: the farm shop, butchery, bakery, Moo Café, Copleys Kitchen making gelato, preserves and fudge, and an online shop. It pays the wages and keeps a year-round team together.
The middle layer is the seasonal crowd-pullers: tulips, sunflowers, pumpkins and Christmas. They bring in thousands of new faces, who then discover the shop.
The top layer is premium, after-hours income from assets that would otherwise sit idle: venue hire and functions, live music nights, The Farmhouse (the original family home, now a holiday let for up to eight guests with its own hot tub), motorhome nights during events, and Reyt Sauna, a wood-fired sauna experience hosted on the farm every Friday to Sunday.
The layers feed each other. Festival visitors become shop regulars. Shop regulars buy festival tickets. Function guests come back for the pumpkins.
How big is that daily engine? Here is a clue. The Farm Retail Association's Large Farm Shop category is for shops with a turnover of more than £1.5 million a year. Farmer Copleys has won it.
Steal this Ask yourself: what can my farm sell every week, not just every season? Eggs, meat boxes, coffee, baked goods or a weekly market. A boring, reliable weekly income is what lets you take risks on the exciting seasonal ideas. |
Lesson 10: Invest in Big Steps, Budget for Surprises, and Kill What Doesn't Work
Here is the damaging admission most success stories leave out.
Once a café was added inside the farm shop, it created so much buzz that the shop became too crowded for people who wanted a leisurely browse. In the Copleys' own words, they had created a monster, and the two needed separating. The answer was a new barn building for a bigger Moo Café and a functions space. They describe it as the biggest investment and the most stressful experience of their lives.
The budget was about £1.05 million. The final bill was about £1.25 million, roughly 19% over. It took two years of planning, and it opened on 16 October 2016, just two days before the busiest weekend of the pumpkin festival.
Then came the lessons that cost money. Running a stand-alone café and restaurant turned out to be completely different from running a farm shop with a café tucked inside: two teams, two sets of practices, a steep learning curve. They launched an evening restaurant called Beast, which was well received, and later made the tough call to stop evening bookings and concentrate on the daytime business. Farmers Weekly also noted that as the team grew to 80, the business had to buy in skills, which pushed up labour costs.
Here is why I respect this. They didn't hide the mistakes, and they didn't keep feeding something that wasn't the best use of their time and money. They doubled down on what worked.
Steal this For any build, add a contingency of at least 20% to the budget and three months to the timeline. Before you launch any new venture, decide in advance the result that would make you stop it. Then honour that decision. |
Lesson 11: Pivot Fast When the World Changes
When COVID-19 hit, Moo Café had to close. The Copleys turned it into a drive-through farm shop, and the farm says demand jumped 600% almost overnight. They added home deliveries and click-and-collect as well.
In autumn 2020, Rob made another brave call. Rather than run a scaled-down, socially distanced festival that he felt would be wrong for the brand, he kept the pumpkin patch open for picking without the usual festival extras.
The payoff came later. The farm says that period cemented its place in the community. It went on to invest in a new deli and to plan Copleys Kitchen, a production building that opened in 2023 to make preserves and gelato, later adding fudge and a dessert parlour.
Rob has also stressed, from his work with fellow farm retailers, that businesses which adapt successfully have systems and processes in place. Agility isn't chaos. It is having the systems to change direction quickly.
Steal this Write down your plan B for three scenarios: bad weather on your biggest weekend, a sudden drop in visitors, and a key supplier letting you down. Knowing your pivot in advance is what lets you move in days, not months. |
Lesson 12: Your People and Your Community Are the Real Moat
Anyone can copy a pumpkin field. Nobody can copy a team and a reputation built over 20 years.
When Farmers Weekly judged the farm in 2018, they found a team of 80 local people who were proud to wear their uniforms and Yorkshire caps. The Copleys had hired a people manager to improve the culture and match staff to the right roles. The team received quarterly newsletters, were involved in decisions, and were rewarded for good performance with free tickets and weekends away. Their published values are simple: friendly, cheeky, trusted, welcoming and honest.
Rob and Heather also show up beyond their own gate. Rob has chaired both the Farm Retail Association and the Yorkshire Agricultural Society. Heather speaks at national food industry events. In 2018 more than 1,500 people visited the farm for Open Farm Sunday, where local farmers set up stations to teach the public about their sectors. Rob has said his business was built on advice from the farm retail community, and Heather has credited the Farm Retail Association as pivotal from before they even opened.
Read that again: before they even opened. They joined the community first, learned from people further along the road, and gave back once they had something to share.
For practical steps, see my guide on how to train farm staff for excellent customer service.
Steal this Join your national or regional farm retail, agritourism or direct-marketing association this month. Go to one event. Ask three operators who are further ahead what they wish they had known in year one. |
Bonus Lesson: Make Your Green Story Visible
Sustainability at Farmer Copleys isn't a slogan on a poster. On sunny days, field-mounted solar panels make the farm shop and café self-sufficient in electricity, and a real-time display in the shop shows visitors what the panels are producing. Solar panels on Copleys Kitchen power that building and The Farmhouse. Used cooking oil from the café is cleaned and recycled to heat water, and a biomass boiler heats the café. The farm keeps 40 beehives and has planted more than 1,000 apple trees.
In the pumpkin fields, Rob has described planting into a biodegradable cornstarch mulch that keeps weeds down and cuts chemical use, and spreading around 500 tonnes a year of certified PAS100 compost made from recycled garden waste.
The lesson isn't that you need solar panels. It is that the good things you already do should be shown, not hidden. Visitors trust what they can see.
Why This Matters for Your Farm Right Now
You might be thinking: "Nice story, Stephen, but that's a big operation in England. What has it got to do with my farm?"
Everything. Because the numbers show farm income is shifting, fast.
According to Defra's Farm Accounts in England, 72% of farm businesses had at least one diversified activity in 2024/25, up from 61% in 2014/15. Income from diversified activities averaged £22,400 per farm, about 31% of average Farm Business Income. That made diversification a bigger slice than agri-environment payments, the delinked Basic Payment, or the income from farming itself.
Among farms that have diversified, enterprise income from diversification averaged £31,100, and for 26% of them it made up at least half of their total farm income. AHDB, citing NFU Mutual, reports that 17% of farmers plan new diversification projects in the next five years, and 40% of those who have already diversified plan to expand.
Back in 2020, Rob pointed out that pumpkin season had become the fastest-growing season in the UK farming calendar, with more farms joining every year. That cuts both ways. Demand for farm experiences is real and growing, but so is the competition. The winners will be the farms that do it properly, which is exactly why studying the best operators matters. If you run a pumpkin patch, read why pumpkin patch sales dropped and the hidden reasons farmers are feeling the pinch.
For a side-by-side look at the two business models, see agritourism vs traditional farming income.
What Farmer Copleys Did NOT Do
Sometimes the most useful lessons are in what successful people refuse to do. Here is what stands out:
They didn't sell through middlemen. Almost the entire pumpkin crop was sold at the farm gate, at retail value.
They didn't build everything at once. It took 13 years to go from one small shop to the £1.25 million barn.
They didn't compete on price. They competed on experience, quality and story.
They didn't cling to ideas that weren't working. The evening restaurant stopped. Older events came and went.
They didn't damage the brand for short-term cash. In 2020 they scaled the festival back rather than run a version they didn't believe in.
They didn't go it alone. They leaned on industry associations, peers and research trips from the start.
How to Apply the Copley Playbook on a Small Farm
You don't need 300,000 pumpkins or a million-pound barn. You need the same principles, scaled to your land and your budget. Here is how the Copley moves translate for a small farm:
What Farmer Copleys did | Your small-farm version |
Tiny farm shop and butchery counter in 2003 | A weekend farm stall or honesty box selling your best product |
Research trips to the USA for ideas | Visit three successful farm attractions within a day's drive |
A 300,000-pumpkin festival | A half-acre pick-your-own patch of one crop that photographs well |
Advance timed tickets | Online booking with paid time slots, even for small groups |
Pumpkin House and Chevy truck | One painted backdrop and one old farm vehicle as photo props |
Pumpkin-fed pork for Christmas | Turn unsold produce into preserves, animal feed or a second product |
Tulips, sunflowers and pumpkins | Add a second season once the first one sells out |
Moo Café | Coffee, cakes and drinks from a simple stall or trailer |
The Farmhouse holiday let | A spare room, cabin or glamping pitch |
Farm Retail Association membership | Your local agritourism or farm retail association |
Your 90-Day Copley-Style Launch Plan
Days 1 to 15, pick your signature. Choose one crop or experience you can sell to visitors, and one season to launch it in. Ask what is missing locally that your farm makes easy.
Days 16 to 30, steal ideas. Visit or study three successful farm attractions. Note their prices, activities, photo spots and parking.
Days 31 to 45, build the basics. Set up parking, toilets, signs, two or three photo spots and one simple kids' activity. Check your insurance and local permissions.
Days 46 to 60, set up ticketing. Create an online booking page with time slots, peak and off-peak prices, and free entry for toddlers.
Days 61 to 75, fill the funnel. Get on Google Maps, post on Facebook and Instagram, and invite local families, schools and press.
Days 76 to 90, launch, count and improve. Open, track visitors and spend per head, ask for reviews, and decide what your second season will be.
Worried about the cost? Read you don't need $100,000 to start agritourism. And if you enjoy UK case studies, don't miss how The Newt in Somerset built an ultra-luxury agritourism empire, a completely different model from Farmer Copleys that serves a very different customer.
Frequently Asked Questions About Farmer Copleys
Who owns Farmer Copleys?
Farmer Copleys is owned and run by husband-and-wife team Rob and Heather Copley. Rob grew up on Ravensknowle Farm, which his grandfather Ernest Copley bought in 1967. The couple opened the farm shop in December 2003.
Where is Farmer Copleys?
Farmer Copleys is at Ravensknowle Farm on Pontefract Road, between Pontefract and Featherstone in West Yorkshire, England, a short drive from the M62 and A1.
How many pumpkins does Farmer Copleys grow?
For the 2026 Pumpkin Festival, the farm says it grew more than 300,000 pumpkins in over 40 varieties, up from about 90,000 reported in 2016.
When is the Farmer Copleys Pumpkin Festival?
The 2026 festival runs on selected dates from 26 September to 1 November, with tickets booked online in advance. Dates change each year, so check the farm's website before you travel.
How does Farmer Copleys make money?
Through a mix of a year-round farm shop, butchery, bakery and Moo Café, products made in Copleys Kitchen, an online shop, ticketed seasonal festivals, pick-your-own sales, live music and events, venue hire, a holiday let and on-farm partners such as a sauna.
What awards has Farmer Copleys won?
Highlights include Large Farm Shop of the Year and Pick Your Own of the Year at the 2024 Farm Retail Awards, Best Large Farm Shop and Best Retailer in the North of England at the 2025 Farm Shop & Deli Awards, and Rural/Farming Event of the Year for its Tulip Festival at the 2025 Yorkshire Post Rural Awards. It was also a Farmers Weekly Diversification Farmer of the Year finalist in 2018.
Can a small farm copy the Farmer Copleys model?
Yes, in a scaled-down form. Starting with one product, selling the experience, using advance tickets, building photo spots, turning leftovers into products and adding seasons one at a time all work on almost any size of farm.
Your Next Step: Find Out Where Your Farm Stands
Here is the truth. Farmer Copleys didn't succeed because of a magic location or a lucky break. They succeeded because they did the right things, in the right order, and kept improving for more than 20 years.
So the real question is: what is the right first step for YOUR farm?
That is exactly why I built the Farm Readiness Quiz. In a few minutes it shows you which parts of your farm are ready for visitors and which ones to fix first, so you don't waste money building the wrong thing.
Then grab my free ebook, The 21-Point Agritourism Blueprint. It walks you through the checklist I use to plan, price and open a farm to paying visitors, step by step.
P.S. Remember where this story began: a farm that wasn't making much money, a tiny shop, and a card machine nobody knew how to use. Every big farm attraction you admire started somewhere small. Yours can start today. Take the free quiz now.
Sources
Farmers Weekly: Diversification Farmer of the Year finalists 2018
FarmingUK: UK's largest pumpkin festival gets underway (2016)
Living North: Meet the farmer who runs the Pontefract pick-your-own pumpkin festival (2022)
Pontefract & Castleford Express: Farmer Copleys Pumpkin Experience (2021)
Pontefract & Castleford Express: The UK's most Instagrammable pumpkin patch (2023)
Hemsworth & South Elmsall Express: Pumpkin picking season is almost here (2018)
Yorkshire Evening Post: Pumpkin Festival returns for its 20th anniversary (2026)
Deliciously Yorkshire: Farmer Copleys celebrate 20 years in business
Deliciously Yorkshire: Double win at the Farm Shop & Deli Retailer Awards 2025
Wakefield First: Tulip Festival crowned Rural/Farm Event of the Year (2025)
Farm Diversity: Farm Retail Awards shortlist and category criteria (2023)
Yorkshire Post: The farming industry needs to adapt to survive
Pocklington Post: The pumpkin festival may be cancelled but the patch is still open (2020)
Farmers Weekly: Almost three-quarters of farms diversify to subsidise income
This is an independent case study by AgritourismSuccess.com, compiled from public sources. It is not sponsored by or affiliated with Farmer Copleys. Figures are as reported at the time and may change, so check farmercopleys.co.uk for current dates and prices. Photos labelled illustrative are stock images, not photos of Farmer Copleys.
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