Northamptonshire farmer Duncan Farrington marks 20 years of Mellow Yellow sustainable premium oil

The friends were invited to try their new cold pressed oil product which led to a brainstorming session which came up with the name for the product, mellow after the taste and yellow after the colour – and Mellow Yellow was born.

Now the Farringtons will celebrate two decades of their Mellow Yellow range and launch a revived product – a fruity Blackberry Vinaigrette.

Duncan said: “Mellow Yellow has grown beyond what I ever imagined since that first day of pressing oil in the grain store, but one thing that hasn’t changed is our commitment to doing things the right way.

"Without healthy soil, a biodiverse environment and good people around us, we simply wouldn’t be where we are today.”

Mellow Yellow began in 2005 with a vision ‘to create exceptional British rapeseed oil’ using a simple philosophy of growing, pressing, filtering and bottling.

Duncan knew how good his product was. Such was his belief in the oil he bought 76,000 bespoke cream-coloured bottle caps, complete with the company logo, designed by Eli, before they started producing the oil on a large scale.

Through trial and error he found a way to filter the oil to take out all the seed husks, leaving the golden liquid. One bottle of Mellow Yellow is made from the equivalent of three bottles of ‘black gold’ the rapeseed.

With his mum’s help he produced the first small batch of Mellow Yellow. It was a messy process, leaving oil all over the grain store floor.

But the day ended with something truly special and Duncan – with the help of his battered old Golf – secured his first eight customers (and a speeding ticket along the way.)

From local sales at butchers’ shops, delis, food shows and markets, word got out about the product.

Two years after they launched, BBC Radio 4 featured the oil on their Food Programme – sales doubled almost overnight.

Culinary queen Nigella Lawson was spotted using Mellow Yellow on her cookery programme and mentioned it in her book, ‘Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home’.

Since those early days, demand for Mellow Yellow has skyrocketed. From one press in a grain store, the brand now operates 18 presses – to mechanically squeeze the tiny seeds – a new warehouse, and a 14-person team, bottling more oil in a single day than the 6,000 that were sold in the entire first year.

Along the way, Farrington Oil’s Mellow Yellow has won prestigious awards, gained nationwide listings with Waitrose and Sainsbury’s, and caught the attention of some big names in the food industry.

Duncan said: “When we first started, we were the first cold pressed rapeseed oil. We were trying to do something different. To get all the flavour and nutrition.

"It’s a good quality healthy oil. Rapeseed oil is as good or better than olive oil.

"There’s a place at the table for all types of culinary oils, but we’ve always passionately believed that the oil we can sustainably produce right here at home is one that should be cherished and championed.”

A fourth generation farmer, Duncan’s family now owns 700 acres in Northamptonshire and across the border in Cambridgeshire.

Since returning to work at the farm in 1993, he has planted 800 trees, 8km of hedge and put in ponds.

Field margins are filled with wildflowers attracting pollinating insects and Duncan’s push for carbon sequestration – taking C02 from the air and locking it into the soil – is being monitored by on the ground and even from space via a satellite.

He said: “Our journey has been about so much more than producing a wonderful oil, it’s been about working with others to find better ways of doing things that bring about positive change for people and planet.

"It’s all about building in resilience – tread lightly metaphorically and physically and be flexible.

“Climate change is real, it is there. We are having more and more extreme weather events because there’s more C02 in the atmosphere.

"Agriculture has the ability to absorb the C02 levels back to pre-industrial levels. The plants are sucking C02 and locking it into the soil."

His expertise means people from across the world, including China, have made their way to see his soil-focused farming methods.

In 2020, Farrington Oils made history by becoming the manufacturer of the world’s first food product to be certified as both carbon and plastic neutral.

They are signatories of the United Nations Climate Neutral Now Initiative pledge and have achieved the Carbon Neutral Gold Standard.

They have recently be reassessed by LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming) and passed with glowing feedback.

As well as celebrating Mellow Yellow’s 20 years, Duncan and Eli will be off to a ceremony to mark Duncan’s award of an MBE for services to food and agriculture in the King’s 2025 New Year’s Honours list.

Back on the farm, the Farrington Oil brand continues to expand with the newly revived Blackberry Vinaigrette using a new and improved recipe developed by Eli. The bottles are already available in local independent retailers.

With two daughters potentially able to take on the business, Duncan is looking forward to the next 20 years.

He said: “We can have a big impact on the environment. When my time is up, I want to have made the world a better place.”