Described as a thriving, sustainably-minded community, it’s the brainchild of Julie Dennis and her husband Ian.

It’s sited at Tracey’s Farm in the beautiful valley of Longcombe near the Dart and Totnes.

The farm is a mixture of arable and beef cattle. They also grow specialist horse hay.

Julie describes the idea: “It’s a commercial estate purely for local artisan food and drink businesses, the idea being that they have the opportunity to share costs, distribution, all things that can be quite challenging for small food and drink producers.

“We feel that it fits really well with the farm because we’re quite frustrated that our produce goes into supermarkets and things.

“Our beef goes to Waitrose. our oats and wheat go for porridge or animal feed and then we grow rape seed for margarine, but it’s not local (as) it goes elsewhere, so we want to have a reason to grow things that will help people in the hub here. Next year, we’re hoping to get all the permissions we need to open a communal space with a view to it supporting the wider food and drink community.

“People will be able to come in and do batch cooking in our commercial kitchen, there’ll be an event space and people will be able to do recipie trialling and training. There are so many possibilities. We might have some micro units for start up business.

“The last thing that Ian and I are really keen to do is to start doing things with school kids- show them around the farm, show them what we are doing.

“Maybe focus on grain one day then bring them back to the communal space and show them how that can be produced into food, perhaps have a mini-mill and then they can take home some bread or something.”

Julie and Ian have three units filled already and three others of varying sizes which are available.

She says they have exciting plans for the future: “There is potential to change two old buildings into further units for other food and drink producers and there is scope to expand the commercial estate.

“Our philosophy is that we want to listen to the food and drink producers that we associate with and let the hub evolve organically because there are so many possibilities.

“Two producers have moved in already - Devon Distillary and Orchard Drinks which are both run by dynamic individuals, and in January Sharpham Cheese are going to move in, which we’re very excited about.”