The Biggest Year of Change We've Had: A 2024 Reflection

By Jack Bosworth, Director, FJ Bosworth & Sons. Published 17 December 2024.

I hope everyone is well.

Another year has drawn to a close. As ever, it has been full of highs and lows.

The highs

This list is in no particular order, but it has been a hell of a year:

• Acquiring another business to help us gain control over our pricing. Procters Sausages now sits alongside the farming side.
• Getting married. I thought I had better put that in.
• Watching Freddie develop into his own character.
• Increasing our contract spreading volume significantly.
• Nominations for numerous awards in recognition of the endless hard work the whole team puts in.
• Promotion to the Premier League for Ipswich Town. Yes, that one matters too.

The lows

Of course, not everything has been perfect. We have also had:

• The passing of Henry, who was the last of the second generation within our partnership.
• A health shock within our family.
• The autumn Budget, which contained announcements many in the farming industry view as genuinely damaging for the next generation of family farms.
• A work and leisure balance that needs to vastly improve in 2025.

The lows do not cancel out the highs, and the highs do not soften the lows. They both happened, and they are both part of the year we have had.

What 2025 needs to answer

I am genuinely excited to see what 2025 has to offer. As a business and as a family, though, we have some major decisions to make on:

• Succession.
• Tax planning.
• Diversification.

All of which is going to require a lot of number-crunching, further family discussions, and some very good advisors. The recent changes to agricultural property reliefs in particular have shifted what looked like a settled plan into something that has to be reopened. Many family farms across the UK are doing the same exercise right now.

A different kind of business

Our family farming business has arguably been through its biggest year for change. We are now:

• Managing a completely different business in the form of Procters Sausages, alongside the farming side.
• Giving more responsibility to non-family staff than we ever have done before.

Both of those have been big steps for us, and both are proving to be genuinely positive. They are also exactly the kind of steps we have to keep taking if we want the business to keep progressing.

I think we are likely to see that level of change beaten in the next one to two years. All of this is coming at what is, in my opinion, the most uncertain time for agriculture I have lived through. It is certainly giving me a “sink or swim” vibe.

Thank you

I would like to use this opportunity to thank all our staff, our customers and our suppliers for everything they do to support us. We could not do any of it without you.

I hope we can all continue to go from strength to strength in 2025, despite the challenges that seem to grow ever greater.

---

Editor’s note (May 2026)

In 2024, FJ Bosworth & Sons:

• Acquired Procters Sausages, completing the farm-to-fork chain Jack writes about across his catalogue.
• Won the National Pig Awards Sustainable Farming Award 2024.
• Was a finalist for the National Pig Awards Pig Producer of the Year 2024.
• Was a finalist for the Farmers Weekly Mixed Farm of the Year 2024.

You can read more on the Awards and Accreditations, Our Pork and About > Our Story sections of this site.

About the author

Jack Bosworth is a fourth-generation farmer and Director of FJ Bosworth & Sons, an arable and pig farming business at Spains Hall, Willingale, Essex. The farm has been in the family since 1919, and Jack farms alongside his father Stuart Bosworth, who was named Farmers Weekly Pig Farmer of the Year in 2011. The business is Red Tractor assured and runs an integrated farm-to-fork model, with home-grown cereals milled on site using solar-generated electricity.

You can follow Jack’s articles on fjbosworth.com, or get in touch via the WhatsApp link on the site.