The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: ramblerskitchen on November 09, 2010, 10:36:24 pm
-
Hello,
I am brand new to the group as well as to keeping pigs. I have spent hours reading this forum and have found your advise invaluable.
I have 6 pigs that I am rearing for slaughter, mainly for us and friends but will have 1 spare to sell on. Can anyone please advise me a what I should be charging for half a pig. I have no idea what the finished dead weight will be, but would like some idea of price per kilo? I last bought half a pig about 18 months ago and paid £150.00 for it...
My pigs are blacks x berkshire with a small amount of Kune Kune in there somewhere.
Any advise would be really helpful.
Thanks
Sarah.
-
Hi Sarah (and welcome to TAS)
I've just done LOADS of research into prices (cos I've a bit of excess myself ;))
You can either work out how much it costs to raise your pig to slaughter weight plus all associated costs - killing, butchery, packaging etc and divide it up per kilo deadweight adding a wee bit of profit for yourself OR check out prices from supermarket basic right up to organic pedigree free range pork and go for something in between. I did both ::)
For a half pig you're probably still looking at about £150 or £6-£7 per kilo (average cost) obviously there will be cuts worth more than that and your mince etc which would be less.
If you want to have a sneaky peek at my prices here they are http://yonderton.webs.com/prices.htm (http://yonderton.webs.com/prices.htm)
HTH
Karen
-
we got a half pig for 80 quid from the local butcher cut up. clearly not the best quality pork but nice still. can you really get away with that price i doubt you would up here.
-
Generally people are prepared to pay more for correctly reared pork/bacon over here N.I we are a few years behind the mainland in terms of awareness of such things and those prices and higher are achieved for quality home raised outdoor pork here by several rare breed butchers. You do need to cover costs and raising pigs is NOT cheap the public do need to know this and pay a fair price.
-
We just sold our spare for for £60 a quarter, cant rember the exact size but it was a large pig, and people were happy to pay that, but we are in affluent Oxfordshire!!
-
We find people buy on quality and tracibility rather than price. Have never had any family/friends say that we are too expensive, only that we don't produce enough to meet demand!
-
I agree, its critical to tell the 'story' behind your pork - welfare, taste, local etc. What we produce is much better than that in the supermarkets!
-
I'm in the Home Counties and sell the half pigs for about £175, that includes everything up to delivery of the half pig to their butcher - so the buyers pay for the butchering on top of the £175.
Eve :wave:
-
ouch
-
blimey, :o :o we were thinking of selling ours for about £100 for 1/2 pig.....
do you think we need to reconsider :pig: :pig: :yum: :pig:
-
:o i dont think people around here would pay that sort of money for 1/2 a pig, we sell ours for £90, a price that seems about average around here.
what sort of weight is the 1/2 a pig for £175 the reason i ask is i have just paid that sort of money for a 25kg box of dexter beef.
-
we sell our half pig for £130 and as post says above people just want to know the pigs have been treated well and have full traceability, never been questioned on price :wave:
-
i agree people want to know where their meat comes from and it has been well looked after, we welcome people to visit our animals. i really dont think we could sell ours for over £100 per 1/2 pig as we have lots of competition around here so we sell at a fair price to us and the consumer and lots of our customers come back to us time and time again, the same with the lambs and goats we sell for meat and the beef that will be on offer in the next year or so.
-
Yes, I think a lot of it has to do with where you live. A farm nearby sells their half pigs for £215 or £205 but that includes butchering - I don't think their customers get trotters, head, bones etc but I'm not sure though, never checked! ;)
I think it's great that so many people want meat from animals that have had a good life - that's the reason we started in the first place!
-
Yes, I think a lot of it has to do with where you live. A farm nearby sells their half pigs for £215 or £205 but that includes butchering - I don't think their customers get trotters, head, bones etc but I'm not sure though, never checked! ;)
I think it's great that so many people want meat from animals that have had a good life - that's the reason we started in the first place!
don't worry eve if your customers are happy theres no problem.
im just tight we bought a 1/4 of a cow butchered and labeled back end for a 180 weight was aroung 50kg. so instinctively i would not want to pay those prices for pork. no that we will need to as little pig and big pig are due to go soon. i can understand why the price is high 40-50 to buy the piglet feeding slaughter at 25 up here and then butchery. so a guess about a hundred per half pig would break even. i find it best to forget that the piggy in the garden can cost more than prime beef.
-
that was one of the points i was trying to make if the price of pork (however tracable) comes close to the price of beef people around here will not pay for the pork.
-
Thank you all for your views and advise.
I did not mention in my original post that I am based in Dorset.
Hopefully, after all my costs, I will end up keeping a pig to fill my freezer which will not have cost me too much, and enjoy eating good quality pork from animals that I know were well cared for and had a good life.
Sarah
-
Hi Sarah I'm from Dorset my son still lives there, and they drive out to the New Forest to a small farm shop and pay an arm and a leg for decent meat especially pork. If you are any where near Poole, and can get down to lower Parkstone, there was a butcher there who only did free range, proper meat. If he is still there check out his prices. His bacon used to sell out within a couple of hours of opening, and free range eggs had to be pre-ordered. This was a few years ago, but would imagine as he was so popular he is still there unless retired. Real Meat Company I think it was called.
-
The price you can get really depends on the area you live in.
We're on the Yorkshire/Cleveland boundary I sell 1/4 pigs for £75 and 1/2 pigs for £140. At these prices i just about break even and thats without factoring a charge for my time & labour!! Work out what its cost you to raise your porkers and don't under sell them. If you cover your costs and get 1/2 or 1/4 pig for yourself then you'll have done well.
What makes my blood boil is when the supermarkets put pork 'outdoor bred' on special offer for like £3/kg! ::) their labelling makes people think they're buying free range pork when they're not!! Unfortunately Trading standards are like wet weekends when it comes to stomping on misleading labelling, look at the carry on the GOS club have had with Waitrose!
Whereever you decide to pitch your prices, the most important thing is that you consider yourself to have done a good job rasing your pigs and that you're happy with the outcome.
All the best Mandy