St Ewe Free Range Eggs on the ‘utter carnage’ of IHT reform and rebuilding trust with Labour
For Rebecca Tonks, running St Ewe Eggs has been a passion project for 17 years.
Tonks, who was 12 when her family first started selling eggs in addition to its dairy produce, launched the St. Ewe Free Range Eggs brand to UK supermarkets in 2007 under the Red Lion accreditation.
“It didn’t take very long for us to start supplying out of [Cornwall] and then regionally for [Asda and Sainsbury’s],” Tonks says.
By 2019, the company had reached a valuation of over £7m, and since then the company has “grown at a rate of knots”, she adds. “Nutrition is our core USP… We went out with a little bit of a different mission, wanting to share the beauty of the West Country, wanting to share the nature of good food.”
But farming has become more gloomy lately, she explains, with the “utter carnage” of changes to inheritance tax policies. “I think everyone’s feeling quite hollow at the moment… there’s a sense of disrespect.”
Supermarkets, too, have come out against the tax, although this has been condemned by some – such as Riverford founder Guy Singh-Watson – as hypocritical given their role in farmers’ financial struggles, Singh-Watson has told The Grocer.
From April 2026, inheritance tax relief for business and for agricultural assets will be capped at between £1.3m and £3m – depending on whether they are married and if they are passing the asset to a child or another family member – with a rate of 20 per cent for assets above that.
“Running St Ewe’s takes a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of drive, a lot of momentum… it’s really exciting, and it’s fun, and the farming sector has lost all that right now,” Tonks says.
A key point of contention is the inclusion of non-residential agricultural buildings, farm vehicles, tools and livestock in that valuation.
“Just because a farm is a valuable asset it doesn’t mean those who work it are wealthy,” National Farmers Union (NFU) president Tom Bradshaw said. “It’s clear the government does not understand that family farms are not only small farms.”
The NFU, whose poultry board Tonks also sits on, organised a rally in London last November to protest the tax change, with more than 10,000 people and 600 tractors in attendance.
Farmers have warned that the UK’s food security is at stake if farmers are forced to break up their estates to pay off death duties. Around 60 per cent of the food consumed in the UK is domestically produced.
The Office for Budget Responsibility has confirmed that older farmers may struggle to reorganise their affairs to minimise the new costs, and has also suggested that farmers are likely to slash investment because of the tax raid.
While the OBR said the policy would raise the planned £500m between 2027 and 2029, it warned that receipts may taper off as farmers increasingly utilized tax-efficient strategies.
“With the challenges that businesses are facing today, the gradient of the mountain has got a whole lot steeper, and the air at the top has got a lot thinner. So does that give you the motivation to climb that mountain?” Tonks says.
Labour have defended the policy by saying it will make it harder for wealthy estates to buy agricultural land as a way to avoid inheritance tax.
‘Currency is always confidence’
According to Tonks, the cost aspect is only half of the picture. The uncertainty created by the speed of the policy’s introduction and its lack of consultation with farmers is the other half.
“I get the government wants to make a big difference, and hats off to them. Things have got to change,” Tonks said. “[But] do things gradually… [The change] blindsided our sector.”
Tonks added that the IHT threshold should be £20m, a view also held by tax campaigner Dan Neidle, who has also found that the tax change will hit working farmers harder than tax avoiders.
Neidle has also suggested instead of taxing land when it is passed down, the government should tax the land only when it is sold, to protect family farms from being broken up.
“Currency is always confidence, and right now, that has been completely blown out of the water,” Tonks said.
“[Farms] don’t know whether to invest for the future, they don’t know whether to hold fire… They don’t know whether they can hand their family farms down to the next generation.”
“There needs to be a negotiation between both parties… whatever has happened in the past, whether it was a lack of understanding, a reading of government stats incorrectly, whatever it was, it doesn’t matter. We’re here now, and we need to sort it out,” she said.
She recommended policies focused on solving farming’s long-term problems. The sector has been squeezed by high costs, climate events and disease for years, with the cost of production often not adding up to the produce they’re being paid, she said.
Defra’s 2023 Farm Business Income statistics showed a significant drop in income across the main farm types in England.Around 30 per cent of farms made a loss across the business, ranging from 23 per cent of dairy farms to 40 per cent of mixed farms.
“We have got to have some confidence and support and backing from the government and the wider food processors and consumers to trust us to be able to do [our jobs],” Tonks says.
“Farmers are really good at what they do [and] we need to be proud of that… We need to pick people up and get them driving forward again and being positive. But right now, we’re not feeling like [that].”