Greg Pilley

"Greg is a governor of Thrupp Primary School, Director of the Stroud Valleys Festivals and a director of Stroud Common Wealth. Through Stroud Common Wealth Greg works to support local social enterprises - businesses that re-invest their profits to deliver social aims."

Beer
According to an article from 2011 "Last year Stroud Brewery was awarded a 102,553 grant from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to invest in the expansion of the brewery. Gregs application was successful because he uses locally grown malting barley. His company supports the rural economy and the diversification of farming and adding value to a local product. With the investment, matched by the brewery of which 65,000 was raised through a further community loan arrangement, Greg is installing a new brewery with four times the current capacity...

"Greg spent time working in Nigeria managing a Wildlife Conservation Project, with the VSO (Voluntary Services Overseas) and was again taken by how all threads of life are linked by the social exchange over a beer. I had this great idea of writing a book, Brews of Africa, about the role of alcohol in traditional Africa and successfully pitched the idea to Guinness. Greg spent five years researching traditional brews of Africa. On his return to the UK, having some farming background, he became interested in setting up a vegetable box scheme. He ended up working for the Soil Association in their local food team (who promote organic food and farming) writing a technical guide on how to set them up.

"This work brought Greg to Stroud and he never left, getting involved in Stroud Community Agriculture a community owned farming enterprise. One day whilst weeding and chatting to my friend Andy we started to think about how good it would be if Stroud had its own brewery again. I became possessed and was determined to make it happen..."

Affiliations

 * Founder, Stroud Brewery
 * Former Associate Director at f3 - enabling sustainable & local food, Project Manager - Community Supported Agriculture at Soil Association

Related Sourcewatch

 * Stroudco
 * Jade Bashford