Everton Farm Shop
Player Valuation: Free Transfer
Everton Farm Shop is located on the A631 which runs from the South Yorks conurbation (Sheff, Rotherham, Donc) to the coast. It provides one of the few crossings over the River Trent with traffic volumes of circa 8000 vehicles per day - more at weekends. Everton is one of the few villages not to have been by-passed by this major trunk road and our shop (a former cart shed) is slap bang next to it. With commodity prices on the floor, many farmers would love to diversify into direct retail but many do not have an appropriate location. Happily, we do.
Selling to passing traffic is vital to the success of the business but the shop is massively popular with local people too. Much of this will be linked to the fact that we are "top drawer" and have given famous Farm Shops a run for their money in national competitions. Estate Agent particulars cite the proximity of Everton Farm Shop ref: units they are selling and house prices in the village have risen. Our district is ex-mining/Labour and you can see the (soon to be demolished) Harworth pit head from the shop....we are therefore performing a form of regeneration in the locality of Everton. But most critical for us as a business, is to pull in the commuters and holiday-makers etc...who pass the shop in their '000's.
The shop was opened in July 2014 following 18 months of selling our own meat from freezers. A friend in the village designed the logo for me gratis (the bat/cobweb thing is only used at Hallow'een) autumn 2014. The brief was that it had to show farm animals, grass, wheat and oil seed rape. The whole thing was put together in one afternoon using photo-shopped images - and we love it!
Spring 2014 we parted company (poorly) with the person who was supposed to be doing our social media. This person had always been extremely taken with the Everton Farm Shop logo because like us, they loved the figurative element. Since they were in possession of an electronic copy, had a number of clients and were not responding to requests to give it back/delete; the logo was put forward for protection. The legal advice stated that because the geographic place name was part of a figurative image, there would be no problem (because you can't register geographic place names etc etc). We made particular care to state that we did not want rights to the geographic place name as part of our application. That solicitor was as amazed as we were when the objection from your club came through.
We hate the idea that our village should be sequestered by a Premier League club. We hate the idea that sport culture should over-ride food culture - but we have had the wind taken out of our sails by the totally unexpected volume of support from the fan base. The fact remains - we live here, we work here, we grow our food here, we process here, we trade here. Everton FC should have registered Everton FC. The counter action requires demonstration of operation across the 22 use classes for which the geographic place name has been registered by the club. This action was the only reason that we were told to change our font/font size ie: that was the climb down position - before then the place name was out of bounds full stop.
At least the ex-social media person will not be able to rip-off the logo now. And if we are defeated on this, we shall simply use the Anglo Saxon spelling and state "Grown in Everton" underneath. No-one can halt the truth of that statement.
We wish you well as a club (re: your traditional operation) and would like to thank those who have offered kind words and other support.
