2025 Winners - Urban Farm-It
Urban Farm-It has been recognised in the 2025 Gift of the Year Awards, winning the Ethical & Sustainable category with their innovative mushroom-growing kit.
Created during lockdown by founder Elliot Webb, the kit lets customers experience the full process of growing mushrooms, with a unique spawn redemption voucher giving flexibility on when to start. We spoke to Ian Harman, Head of Commercial, to learn more about the product, the team behind it, and what’s next for the brand.
How did it feel when you found out you were a Gift of the Year winner?
Delighted and proud of our achievement. We had orignaly created the concept for B2C but when we developed the spawn redemption voucher system so that retailers could stock the range knowing that nothing perishable is in the kit and then consumers can buy them and decide when they wanted to start growing then redeem their free spawn - we had no idea how well they would do in retail outlets.
What does winning this award mean to you and your business?
Its recognition that Grow Your Own food does resonate with the consumer and the business mantra is 'the future of food' so it inspires to create more products which we are - look out for our Grow Your Own herbs with a hydroponic system!
Tell us the story behind your winning product—what inspired it?
It was created in lockdown by our founder Elliot Webb who is a passionate forager. Giving people the opportunity to learn and entire process of growing mushrooms from innoculation to harvest was delivered in this easy to use kit
What makes your product stand out in the market?
The unique spawn redemption voucher means the fresh spawn is delivered to the customer whenever they are ready to grow - this means you can buy them as gifts which is what people do.
What kind of feedback have you received from customers about this product?
We get a lot of positive feedback and pictures, we are also on hand to help people who have questions or want to check that they are following the instructions correctly.
Can you share a fun or surprising moment from the product development journey?
We create and design inhouse including the final packaging so their is always a lot of fun and passion in our NPD.
We like to shoot how to videos which are allways great fun!
Who was involved in bringing this product to life, and how did you celebrate with your team?
Full team effort which is why its so rewarding. The substrate is fill into bags by hand, the spawn is decanted into bags in our white room lab and we build the boxes on the farm and fulfill on site as well so we literally liver and breathe the creation and shipping of every kit - 100% UK made from our farm in Kent.
A team BBQ with beers is always our choice for celebration, nothing beats that after a hard days work.
How do you plan to leverage your Gift of the Year win in your marketing or future plans?
We will use the GOTY marketing assets as part of our outreach - we are quite a humble bunch so we continue to get on with making great products and its great to be noticed by the industry.
What’s next for your brand—any exciting projects or launches on the horizon?
Bottle Botanics - 7 hydroponic herb kits will be launched in July. Beautiful and purposeful soil free growing kits that look stunning on your window sill. Available for retail with a 50% margin so look out for these soon.
Find out more about this winning product and explore Ubran Farm-It here.
