Farm to Table
It’s all too easy to forget about the muddy fields and barns full of straw and hay that represent life on the farms from which we source our prime British meat. The slow, natural way in which animals are grown, the freedom of true free-range animals and the healthy, nutritious diets of animals left to forage are the very reasons why the meat we sell on to customers in our shops is so succulent, flavourful and delicious.
Discover a little more about the farms from where we at source our meat.
Sutton Hoo Chicken
Reared free-range out in the delightful Suffolk countryside using traditional farming methods Sutton Hoo Chickens are slowly grown to full maturity for succulent flavour and the perfect texture just like chicken used to be. They’re a passionate farm that loves to show their day to day life and share recipes on social media.
https://www.suttonhoochicken.co.uk/
Packington Free-range
Another fabulous free-range chicken farm (and pork too) where they believe what is good for the animals is good for us too. Succulent, richly flavoured meat often lost in today’s intensive farming methods. Packington opened up the farm gates in June as part of Open Farm Day in the UK, inviting people in to look around and see a working farm first hand. Follow them on social media to enjoy the same insight.
https://www.packingtonfreerange.co.uk/
The Rare Breed Meat Company
A family business that has been going for four generations, this is a company that knows its farming. They started out with turkeys and geese and then moved into pork and rare breeds such as Salt Marsh Lamb and traditional breeds of cattle. Life is good for our Gloucester Old Spot pigs. Living in large paddocks in coastal Suffolk, they wander and explore as they please, indoors or out and are reared for 40 weeks. They grow at naturally slower rates than in intensive farming for meat full of flavour and with a succulent texture. Their Blythburgh rare breed pigs, reared on the Soffolk coast provide our free-range bacon.
The father and son team runs a farming and butchery business with a highly collaborative approach to the rearing of their poultry, pork, beef and lamb. The Blackwell farm is occupied over the autumn with the young Norfolk goslings that will number up to 2,000 by December. These chicks spend their early weeks in this warm dry and spacious shed feeding on straw and a highly nutritious and balanced diet. In a couple of weeks they’ll take to the expansive pastures just out of shot where there is plenty of shade from the summer sun and from where, each evening they’ll be brought back into the warmth and security of barns like this one.
We were able to see the quite exceptional British White, Limousine, English Longhorn and rare breed Suckler herd beef cattle. These herds are kept below 100 in number and have the warmth and protection of the sheds as well as the green, shaded pastures just outside. Both are appreciated! The suckler herds spend longer with their mothers on their milk and a full year on grass. Its this husbandry as much as the breed that creates some of the finest looking and best conditioned beef you’re likely to buy.
All of the livestock is from local family farms ensuring complete traceability and high welfare standards. With all operations within easy reach George and Howard can easily oversee the management of their entire stock and the results are……….well, why don't you tell us?
http://www.therarebreedmeatcompany.co.uk/
