Is it my imagination, or is there an increasingly pubescent squeak to the patter at local farmers’ markets? Browse any small-scale food fair, and you’ll see more and more stalls manned by teenagers selling food products they’ve produced, developed and marketed themselves, a trend confirmed by Rita Exner of Farma, the National Farmers’ Retail & Markets Association: “We are seeing a lot more young people coming to markets,” she explains. “Quite often, they’ve got business ideas of their own and are doing something a little different.”

Don’t be tempted to write them off as twee hobbyists, though. There is today a healthy appetite for entrepreneurialism among young Britons: the Generation Enterprise report by City & Guilds suggests that 48 per cent of 16 to 25-year-olds aspire to start up their own business, the same report ranking Jamie Oliver as one of the most inspirational entrepreneurs to young people. So as passion for food and enthusiasm for business among teens continue to converge, we should get used to food-savvy teenagers such as Duncan Turnbull, Louis Barnett and Fraser Doherty making it on to the news and into our kitchens.

Duncan Turnbull, 18

Founder of Yorkshire Meats (www.yorkshiremeats.co.uk)

Yorkshire Meats is a small company breeding free-range, rare-breed pigs near York. Founded by Duncan Turnbull when he was just 16, its Adopt-a-Pig scheme allows customers to monitor the life of their pig online before choosing which cuts of meat they want once it is slaughtered, providing “the ultimate in food provenance”.

“About three years ago, I started keeping four pigs as a sort of trial,” says Turnbull. “I was brought up in the country, and for me, pigs were always the most interesting animal. It was a bit of a joke at first… everyone at school did different things, and I kept pigs, so I was ‘the pig lad’. But they weren’t pets. I knew from the start that they were for tea, and that we were going to make sausages out of them eventually.

“It was a combination of family, friends and neighbours who first showed an interest in actually buying the meat. They said they wanted bacon like their grandfather used to have it; stuff that wasn’t white and swimming in fat, and pork with really good crackling. Also, these days, people are more concerned about where their food has come from, so they know what’s gone into it and, more importantly, what’s not gone into it. It all helped me realise there was a wider market for what I was doing.

“All our pigs are reared outside with no growth promoters or additives in their food. Through our Adopt-a-Pig scheme, the food public – ‘foodies’ – track their pig’s progress throughout its life before they eat it. I’m relatively web-savvy, and almost all of our business is done over the internet. You can choose a pig online, name it and see new pictures of it on the website, which is your portal to all the information, and something I developed. You can buy postcards, photo-packs and clothing with your pig on, too, and we’ve got customers from Aberdeen to Brighton coming to York to visit their pig or collect their meat. On an average school day, I’ll spend less than an hour with the pigs, but I’ll also spend time updating the website, doing correspondence and checking orders. In one sense, it’s almost a sanctuary from schoolwork… I suppose I developed it in lieu of another hobby. Balancing school and business is very much like other people balance school and sport or drama, only I’m getting paid for it.

“I’m very lucky in that lots and lots of people have taken me under their wing and shown me how to do things; from keeping pigs in the first place, to the website and everything else. I’ve learnt an awful lot from fellow pig keepers, some of whom have been doing it for 40 years and are complete experts. Last year, Food From Britain helped fund me so I could go to the world’s largest indoor food festival, the Salone De Gusto in Turin. It’s a five-day event, and I took four mates with me to help on the stand. After spending all day showing off our British sausages to Italians, we’d spend the night in the pub. It was certainly a lot of fun.

“You’re never going to make millions with something like this, but the pigs have paid for a holiday for me and my mates in Greece. Most of the money, I’ll re-invest in the business, so I can sustain it when I go to university. The pigs will be my beer fund… hopefully they’ll let me have some pretty wild Saturday nights out.”

Louis Barnett, 16

Founder of Chokolit (www.chokolit.co.uk)

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