Taking food education on the road with The Pony Farm Bus 

Jaque Taylor reports on how the UK’s first mobile bus combining food-growing facilities with an onboard kitchen is transforming local schools and communities. 

When I first learned about the Pony Farm Bus, my mind immediately jumped to The Magic School Bus, a children’s book and TV series where the titular bus transforms into a plane, submarine, spaceship or surfboard. In the series, Ms. Frizzle and her students are carried off on whimsical adventures to learn about science.  

In my eyes, the Pony Farm Bus is no less magical – let me explain.  

Specially designed as the first mobile food education bus that grows food and has a kitchen on board (the first as far as we are aware!), a vintage double decker bus has been reimagined into a unique learning space that travels directly into schools and community spaces around the South West, including Bristol. The project was formally debuted at Bristol’s FŌDA Festival this past September and has been out and about all summer at events and community groups. 

The 25+ year-old bus, nicknamed James due to its vehicle number 007 was donated by The First Bus Group a few years ago and has since taken on quite the dramatic transformation. 

Nowadays, the bus sports a colourful wrap complete with cheerful graphics of fruit, veg, gardening tools and the like, while also proudly displaying its mission of ‘growing awareness one stop at a time’ for all to see. It’s a joyful display that’s hard not to smile at, and once you learn what’s waiting through its doors, it’ll only make your smile bigger. 

With its original seats gutted, the bus has been cleverly converted to include a working kitchen, dining area, demonstration space, hydroponics system and planters. 

Thoughtfully designed to make full use of the bus’s many large windows, the bus also acts as a greenhouse, with seasonal produce growing aplenty at the back, where visitors can get their hands dirty without ever stepping onto a farm. 

The goal of the initiative is to bring interactive learning experiences into the suburbs – to schools and community groups that can’t easily make the journey out to The Pony, a produce-led restaurant, event venue, cookery school, and kitchen garden in the Chew Valley. It provides community outreach so that more children are able to better understand where their food comes from and how it’s grown. 

“It has been an idea for ages and it’s great to see this come to fruition. Immersing ourselves in the community is behind all we do. Seeing the bus busy and active, going out to suburbs and helping to alleviate food insecurities is important but we also want to keep this fun”, says Josh Eggleton, Owner of The Pony Restaurant Group. 

In the spirit of fun, children can step inside to explore the world of hydroponics and growing systems, take part in interactive food and farming lessons, join hands-on cooking and nutrition sessions, and engage in real conversations around food, sustainability, and healthy eating. By bringing the experience directly into schools and communities at no cost to them, the initiative helps make food education all the more accessible, engaging, and memorable.  

The Pony Restaurant Group are also proud to have recently been awarded B Corp status.  

“B Corp creates a level of transparency in the way we run our business. It’s easy to say you do something or aspire to something but ultimately, you’re defined by your actions and I think it’s nice for us to be able to say we are doing these things. It’s a shame, in many ways, that these things are necessary at all. But in a world where misinformation and a lack of transparency can sometimes prevail, they have become increasingly important”, says Josh. 

Through 18 years of community work across Bristol and Somerset, they have become increasingly aware of the challenges surrounding food education. Their close work with Team Canteen and The Mazi Project has highlighted the transformative impact of community-led food initiatives, which inspired the creation of the Pony Farm Bus. 

Help keep the wheels on the bus going round and round 

To help keep the Pony Farm Bus actively on the road and meet their goal of reaching 1,000+ children in 25 schools across the South West a year, please consider donating to their fundraiser.  

Contributions will help fund school visits, community outreach, and hands-on food education for children across the South West, while helping keep the initiative accessible to schools and groups. Every donation, no matter how small, helps keep The Pony Farm Bus on the road and delivering meaningful food education experiences.  

If you want to get involved and volunteer to take part of the ongoing programme, please complete the contact form and someone will be in touch. 

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