The Floating Farmshop
Boater and chef Naomi Cooper tells us how a jar of homemade jam launched the idea for her liveaboard life and roving business.
Naomi will be setting up her first towpath stall in May.
The Floating Farmshop concept came to me while I was working as an events coordinator at an urban farm in Stockport where the community gardeners and I started making jams and chutneys to use up excess fruit and vegetables on the site. We were selling them at events and I realised how much people love a homemade preserve. We also sold vegetables grown on the site there, as well as baked goods and honey. I’ve always had a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit, and one day I pictured myself selling similar produce from the side of a boat.
I grew up in a little coastal town in Cumbria, but lived and worked in Greater Manchester and then Stockport for several years and have always loved being close to the water. Living on a boat was a thought that came to me – like lots of others – during the pandemic. I’d always worked fairly low income jobs in the charity sector so the thought that I’d ever earn enough to buy my own house felt like an impossible dream. I decided to focus on something more achievable and chose to save up to buy a floating home instead – that being said, living on a boat still isn’t as cheap as some people might think. For a few years I was saying “if I buy a boat”, then it became “when I buy a boat”, and then in 2023 I just decided that I was going to do it. After that, everything happened quite quickly.
Moving afloat
My boat Sunflower is a 30ft cruiser-stern Springer built in 1987 – it’s six years older than me – and it has a big, rattly Thornycroft engine. It was originally called Oscar Boo but I changed the name (when it was out of the water for blacking as apparently it’s bad luck to do this while it’s on the canal!). After a few months of surveys and getting some initial work done on it, I was able to bring Sunflower through the 50 or so locks from Nantwich to the Macclesfield Canal, where I did the bulk of the renovations during the winter months of 2023.
Everything was carried out on a tiny budget. The boat was clearly previously used just for holidays as it had a small living space and a cabin with a toilet/shower room separating the two. I kept the layout the same with the galley at the stern and the bedroom at the bow. I had to get 240V electrics installed but I learned how to re-plumb the entire boat and installed a double sink myself. I also needed a full-sized 12V fridge/freezer, a double oven and gas hobs. I moved on board Sunflower full time in April 2024 with my nine-year-old pet rabbit Eris. The boat is based in a marina with electric hook-up but I will be bringing it out onto the cut to trade this summer. Once I get a good solar panel system installed, I’ll be able to stray a little further from the marina, but this year I plan on staying local on the Macclesfield Canal.
Professional galley
As well as building my Floating Farmshop business, I cook for yoga retreats and small events, and I’m a chef at the National Trust’s Lyme Park where I make a lot of soup and bake many, many scones. Working in professional kitchens, I was well aware of the food safety requirements that I’d need on board my boat – non-porous work surfaces, separate sinks for hand washing etc. I also gained a five-star food hygiene rating from the local council. They actually recommended some fly screens for the boat’s doors during the warmer months, which I hadn’t thought about as my inspection was carried out in the winter.
Small business
I was worried about how making jams and chutneys would work aboard the boat but I’ve adapted to producing smaller batches multiple times, which suits me pretty well. I recently made 98 jars of rhubarb jam, which I did in three batches and each batch needed two pans. It might seem like a faff to some people but it’s one of the challenges of this venture and I find it more manageable in general. I can only sterilise 40 glass jars at a time in my oven, so that has to be my batch limit anyway.
Working in a smaller kitchen is great – I don’t have to take a single step to grab the utensil I need, and I can swing round on the spot to put something in the bin. Living in a marina, waste disposal isn’t really an issue and I try to put as little as possible into landfill. I have a wormery for my compostable scraps, which sits outside my boat on the pontoon.
The biggest downside of having a boat-sized business is that once I’ve filled up 98 jars of jam, there’s not much room left on board until I’ve popped them into crates and taken them elsewhere to store.
Preparing the rhubarb for batch cooking.
Towpath sales
My boat stall is launching on the first weekend of May in Bollington, and then I’ll be heading to Marple in June, High Lane and Poynton in July, Marple again in September, and back to Bollington in October for my birthday weekend (more accurate locations will be announced on my social media). If it all goes well, I’ll be doing more in 2026 but that seems a long way off still.
Naomi with a selection of her boat-made produce.
Involving the community
I love the idea of encouraging people to enjoy and appreciate the canal network while visiting my stall.
The Floating Farmshop isn’t just about selling jam on the towpath. I want to integrate into my local community by offering workshops and events like supper clubs too. My degree is in community facilitation and I have many years of event management and leading workshops – and I just love talking to people and teaching them what I know. I actually think this side of my business is what I’m most excited about.
This is an extract of a feature that appears in the May 2025 issue of Waterways World, click here to read the full article.
Find out more at floatingfarmshop.com.
