Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones

October 2010

Wilfred Jones, better known as ‘The Black Farmer’ gave us the highs and lows of achieving a dream. In his case the dream had taken thirty years to achieve and had taken him on a journey that led to ‘dishonourable discharge’ from the army, a foray into catering and a television career as director and producer. These experiences eventually led him to achieving the goal he had set himself as a teenager: to own his own farm. He accounted his eventual success to unrivalled passion, creating jeopardy and ‘finding’ the entrepreneurial types that gave him a helping hand along the way.

He stressed that the journey is far from over when the goal is achieved. After being snubbed by some of the UK’s largest food retailers, it was his determination and persistence that led him to becoming a household name. He gathered an online petition of consumer names that eventually convinced the likes of Asda and Waitrose that his produce, namely sausages and bacon, were worth stocking. Since then the brand has taken on a life of its own – literally! The Black farmer range now includes The Black Farmers ‘Wife’ and ‘Daughter’ as well as a fashion range that will aim to instil some rural trends into the urban fashion scene. With global expansion also in the pipeline, Wilfred left us all convinced that the limits for a brand should never be pre-determined.