[Damok]

Hi all,

Aspiring small holder here, I'm looking to do some research before looking to take the plunge at some point.

Do many people here (small holders, crofters, small farmers) sell meat direct to customers via markets, local community, online etc?

I'm wondering what the feasability of selling premium high welfare meat (beef, lamb, mutton) online is? Does anyone do this with any sucess?

[Rosemary]

We sell ours locally, by word of mouth. We only kill two steers and maybe 10 tup lambs a year, so it's not *that* much but I still get a bit stressy in case no-one wants it. We sell as 10kg beef boxes and whole or half lamb boxes; I try to sell as much as possible before we put the animals away, so that the meat comes in to our and out again within a couple of hours. Any unsold meat is frozen and sold over the following months.

Selling individual cuts / packs online is quite challenging - your butchre has to weigh and package accurately otherwise the order form becomes incredibly difficult to manage.

We don't have enough meat to justify a farmers' market stand.

Personally, it's about local food for local people - so the idea of posting it all over the country sems s bit mad 

[BrimwoodFarm]

Total newb question [member=13]Rosemary[/member] , but when you say a 10kg beef box, what does that contain? 10kg of prime cuts, or a variety of cuts. Do you butcher yourself, or do you send the steers off to abattoir and then not see them again until they're all nicely cut?

Just thinking about the process and what's entailed as I'd like to do similar in the future.

[Damok]

Thanks Rosemary.

Regarding your point on local food for local people, there's huge receptive markets for premium high welfare meat in cities and urban areas across the country. Tapping into these markets could ease the stress around butchering time. Granted it's not all about sales, but it's a market that could pay a premium.

Watching Sandy the crofter on the BBC's This Farming Life selling mutton and beef across the country got me thinking about how to tap into this large market of potential customers. 

[Rosemary]

If you are selling to the public, the animal must be slaughered and butchered in an approved premises - for our small numbers, it's not worth setting up as a butcher's cutting room, so yes, animals go off to the abattoir; from there to the butcher, who cuts, vac packs and labels, then we pick the meat up from there and sort it into 10kg boxes as a mix of joints, steaks, stewing and braising cuts, mince, burgers and sausages. We tot up the weights as we go and it's generally about 11kg. We charge £125 per box. This year we sold 20 and we've still got a lot of sausages (BBQ summer please this year), mince and some other bits and pieces in the freezer that we're selling off.

The whole / half lambs, we weigh and charge at £11.50/kg.

We have our own labels but we just use the butcher's prices for individual cuts.

Don't forget to register with your local EHO. The burden for selling fresh and frozen meat in small quantities isn't high, the way we do it. We need to have thermometers in the freezers and record the temperatures daily.

[Rosemary]

Regarding your point on local food for local people, there's huge receptive markets for premium high welfare meat in cities and urban areas across the country. Tapping into these markets could ease the stress around butchering time. Granted it's not all about sales, but it's a market that could pay a premium.

Watching Sandy the crofter on the BBC's This Farming Life selling mutton and beef across the country got me thinking about how to tap into this large market of potential customers.

Indeed there is, but surely there must be premiem high welfare lamb closer to London than Lewis?

[greenbeast]

we do this with pork, some veal and some lamb and turkeys at christmas (last two not our own), second year in and it's going reasonably well. Massive undertaking though.
we sell nationally and we cater using our own meat at some reasonable sized shows/events

[BrimwoodFarm]

If you are selling to the public, the animal must be slaughered and butchered in an approved premises - for our small numbers, it's not worth setting up as a butcher's cutting room, so yes, animals go off to the abattoir; from there to the butcher, who cuts, vac packs and labels, then we pick the meat up from there and sort it into 10kg boxes as a mix of joints, steaks, stewing and braising cuts, mince, burgers and sausages. We tot up the weights as we go and it's generally about 11kg. We charge £125 per box. This year we sold 20 and we've still got a lot of sausages (BBQ summer please this year), mince and some other bits and pieces in the freezer that we're selling off.

The whole / half lambs, we weigh and charge at £11.50/kg.

We have our own labels but we just use the butcher's prices for individual cuts.

Don't forget to register with your local EHO. The burden for selling fresh and frozen meat in small quantities isn't high, the way we do it. We need to have thermometers in the freezers and record the temperatures daily.

This is brilliant. Thanks so much [member=13]Rosemary[/member] ! I'm SEVERAL years away from even starting this, but it's always good to start learning the lay of the land way in advance. I can't imagine I would be doing huge quantities either, so a set up like yours would work well. Wonderful. And, of course, excellent ideals in keeping food local and and food miles low.

[YorkshireLass]

Closer to the time, talk to your environmental health person. They have a vested interest in you getting things right too! And it's much easier to guide someone as they are setting up than to try to undo mistakes