Chef Tom Kerridge cooks for Presteigne family

Gumma Farm, near Presteigne, produces beef, lamb and, since 2010, poultry. Billy Davies’ chicken is sold to M&S, which led Tom to pay a visit to Powys.

As part of the new Tom Kerridge Cooks Britain series, filmed for ITV, Billy and his family featured on episode six of the brand new series, which aired on August 6. The show shares the name of chef Tom’s new book.

Tom, 51, visited Gumma Farm’s three chicken sheds, which each house 10,000 birds, drove a forklift and cooked Billy and his family a delicious meal from a recipe in the new book – he even played football with the chickens.

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“Tom is the face of M&S so they put him in contact with us, and as he was launching his new book they came to do some filming at the farm, arriving during the first week in March,” said Billy.

“They spent a day filming, taking video of him coming up the drive, taking a look outside and inside the sheds. He then cooked one of the recipes from his book and we sat outside in the freezing cold and ate what he cooked us.”

Billy, wife Rachel and daughters Sophie, 16, and Katie, 11, sat down to eat and were impressed with the dish of chicken thighs and peas.

“He was a really nice bloke, down to earth and he was really interested in what we were doing at the farm”, added Billy.

“I was quite nervous beforehand, but he made me feel at ease. He’s a big chap and had a go at driving the loader; I could definitely use him on the farm.

Tom came and visited the farm in his big food truck and learnt all about the poultry production that goes on at Gumma Farm, which has been a traditional beef and sheep farm, before owner Billy Davies introduced chickens 14 years ago – as Tom revealed, 40 per cent of the meat we eat in Britain is chicken.

Tom checked out the 350-acre farm’s three chicken sheds; two were built in 2010, with a third added in 2020.

Inside the 950 square metre sheds that 10,000 birds call home, Billy wants them to have things to keep them occupied. This includes straw bales to peck and perch on, as well as footballs to play with.

Tom Kerridge Cooks Britain is the chef's new book, while a series of the same name has also been filmed for ITV. (Image: Tom Kerridge)

The free-range chickens Billy produces go to Capestone, a company in Pembrokeshire, to be processed before going to Marks & Spencer.

“The programme was all about the chickens and what we do as free-range producers before Tom then cooked a chicken meal for the family with a recipe from his new book,” said Billy.

“We’ve been supplying M&S for the last 5 years through Capestone. We have five cycles of 30,000 chickens each time, so 150,000 in total per year.

“They come in as day-old chickens and go out at 56 days. We have them inside from the start and then reduce the temperature until they go outside at 28 days; so they spend half of their lives outside.”

To encourage them to go outside, Billy has made their surroundings more inviting. He’s planted trees and each of the three sheds is surrounded by a hectare of land that the 30,000 chickens roam around.  

“What I like is having a young life and watching it grow,” added Billy. “As long as they’ve had a happy life here I can’t do anything more for them.”