Alan and Rachel Teare farm 500 acres at Ballakelly in Andreas, where they live with their young two children, Alice and Harvey.

It’s land that’s been in Alan’s family for five generations.

Their farm shop has become popular in recent years, selling their own home-reared and butchered beef, lamb and pork and they have been a familiar sight around the shows, and during TT fortnight cooking up hearty sausage and bacon breakfasts.

It was hard work and it wasn’t making millions but it ticked along nicely.

Then along came coronavirus.

Rachel studied accountancy in the UK and several of the friends she made at university have become GPs in London.

It was from them that she gained an insight into the sort of restrictions that were on the way for the island and the rigorous hygiene practices they would need to adopt to stay safe and keep their business going.

Even so, the extent of the lockdown announced for farmers showing symptoms of the virus, which mean they can’t even go into their lambing sheds or into their fields to check stock, were as much of a shock to the Teares as they were to everyone else in the industry.

Rachel says: ’Once we got our heads around the restrictions, very quickly we realised that top of the list was protecting Alan and the farm team looking after the stock.

’If Alan can’t farm, the animals don’t get fed.’

They developed a farming contingency plan in case the worst should happen and Alan did catch the virus. In that event, a lifelong friend and his four sons would come and help.

Then, the decision was made to close the farm shop and move to a delivery-only model.

They had a lucky break in finding a butcher, Duncan Hayes, to work for them, allowing Alan to concentrate on farming.

Or rather, he had found them, as Rachel explains: ’Duncan is a retired pilot and a former butcher who came to live in the island two years ago.

’When he went out on a venture to find decent meat on the Isle of Man, he found Ballakelly so he was already a customer. And he used to say: "If you ever need a hand with the butchery I’d be glad to help".’

This has allowed them to split everybody up into different teams who keep largely separate: the farming, the butchery operation and the deliveries.

Each team is provided with a packed lunch which they all eat separately.

Alan and Rachel and their two children, Alice and Harvey, have been self-isolating on the farm for the last four weeks, where everything is in place for them and their teams.

Rachel says: ’None of us have been near a fuel station or a shop.

’We have a white diesel tank on the farm and luckily I already had accounts set up with Aalin Dairies, IOM Creameries, Robinson’s, Agrimark and Gellings to supply all the products people were panic buying.’

When the Teares started offering deliveries they quickly realised that people needed not just meat but other basic foods as well. Apart from Ross Bakery bread, all of these - Allinson’s veg, Ballig eggs and Chris Kneale’s onions - come from farms adjacent to their own. ’Just over the hedge,’ as Rachel puts it.

Not surprisingly, demand for their meat and veg packs has been high.

Rachel says: ’A busy week for me before the lockdown would have been 10 deliveries which I fitted in around the school run and taking the kids to the gym.

’That first week, just before the schools closed we had 100 orders and it was like our Christmas volume of business.

’So that was the hardest part to get through.

’We ended up closing our website while we caught up and we had to employ another delivery driver.

’That first week we contacted everyone who had ordered and told them what we could honour and, where we couldn’t, what we could offer instead. We realised that 50 boxes a week was do-able for us and we concentrated on our regular customers first.’

If this all sounds like good news and an expansion for their business, Rachel points out that there have been losses as well as gains.

The closure of the farm shop has meant the loss of a busy day’s trading each Saturday when people would come into the shop and chose from a much larger selection of products.

But there is the hope that they have introduced Ballakelly Farm, and the concept of eating local, to a wider audience.

Rachel says: ’There were always people who wanted to support you but there were others who liked the idea but just found that Tesco was easier and on the way home and maybe they will stick with us now.

’It will hopefully allow us to move from a very small, artisan business that just about broke even, to take it to the next level.’