The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: Q on July 15, 2015, 07:55:46 pm
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These are my thoughts as a consumer of pork as opposed to a producer & I would welcome some comments from both sides of the marketplace.
I recently bought a half pig direct from the producer but I wont be doing it again. The pork was a wild boar / tamworth cross and I paid £145 for 22kg.
it wasnt bad but it wasnt the best pork I ever tasted either.
I also felt that I ended up with cuts that I wouldn't normally buy (and more chops than I have eaten in the past 20 years).
So I still intend to eat more pork than I have in the past but I think I need a different way of buying it than this.
Just my thoughts so please be gentle.
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As a producer when we sell half a pig its exactly that .and we leave it up to the customer to do with I what they want unfortunatly when buying a half you only get one side so I'm a bit confused as to what your complaint is about producers id say its more to do with the butcher or yourself for not making clear to the butcher what you wanted !as to the quality of the meat how long was it hung ??? Anything with wild boar needs longer hangtime !!
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Not a complaint verdifish just my consumer opinion - If I get round to rearing and selling pork I will have a think about what my customer might want.
So, no, I didnt get a choice of cuts - it came in a box & as it was my first go I didnt think to ask & wasnt asked.
I got a 4 pounds of sausages that weren't flavoured at all & too much meat content (i think).
I suppose I have concluded that the experience was disappointing but not the sellers fault.
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I don't sell half pigs very often simply because I run a market stall three days a week and all our pork goes through there. If someone asks me for a half go to great lengths to explain how it is priced, ie weighed on the bone before any cutting is done, so that the meat the customer gets does not weigh the same as half a pig carcass. I also take detailed instructions as to how they want it cutting. So my customers know exactly what they'll get and exactly what it will cost them. An awful lot of people selling half pigs are very vague about what they're actually selling which doesn't help the customer at all.
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Out of interest, . . . . . .what were you expecting for a half pig?
Our standard half pig boxes are made up on chops of various types, joints, belly pork and sausages. It's £100 for between 22-25 kilo.
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Out of interest, . . . . . .what were you expecting for a half pig?
Our standard half pig boxes are made up on chops of various types, joints, belly pork and sausages. It's £100 for between 22-25 kilo.
So if I bought a half pig from you for 100 quid and it weighed 25kg? And then I bought another one for the same price but it only weighed 22kg? That's exactly why people get annoyed and start complaining on internet forums. Why don't you weigh each half and charge the correct price based on whatever it is per KG?
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So if I bought a half pig from you for 100 quid and it weighed 25kg? And then I bought another one for the same price but it only weighed 22kg? That's exactly why people get annoyed and start complaining on internet forums. Why don't you weigh each half and charge the correct price based on whatever it is per KG?
*blinks*
Because you are buying HALF A PIG of variable weight. If I buy a home made cake at a cake stall I am fully conscious that, not having come through the production line, it may vary in weight from the cake next to it. I don't sell it by 100gr, I sell the cake.
That is what happens when you buy a non production line item, it'll be different from it's neighbour.
The CORRECT price is the price for half a pig, it isn't sold per kilo.
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I sell half lambs cut up at the Abbatoir. They charge me per kilo and I sell on the same basis. To me as the seller and as a consumer that seems to be the fairest way
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All the difficulties of direct sales highlighted for you Q. A very good value for money purchase therefore ;)
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The CORRECT price is the price for half a pig, it isn't sold per kilo.
But if some half pigs give you more meat than other half pigs, surely it would be fairer and more transparent for the customer if it WAS sold per kg?
We're going to be selling half Zwartbles lambs in the autumn, but I'm going to send one of the Shetland cross Manx lambs at the same time because we missed castrating him. The price is £75 per half lamb - I take it you don't mind which one you get, Mr customer? :innocent:
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Mr Customer is easily fooled. Last year there was a sign outside a local butcher - half a lamb £35....
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I used to sell half pigs but it was a pain in the bum, I used to guarantee a minimum kg and so you knew what you were getting and were lucky if you got more (which you always did). I sold them at birth (only had one litter a year from Joan of Arc) and the customer knew what he was getting ... half a pig with a minimum weight.
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Good pun. :pig:
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Sounds fair KC.
I think my overall thought was that the selling of half pigs is a great convenience to the seller rather than for the consumer. ( I accept there are people who only WANT a half pig ).
I dont need to spend £140 in one lump if I just buy the cuts I need now and I also dont have to clog up my freezer.
If its not a cheaper (kg) price to buy it in bulk as it is with other foodstuffs then why would I do it?
It just made me think whether you have had customers in the past who buy a half pig and never return but dont tell you why.
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It should be cheaper. We're looking to sell whole pig (butchered) at £250, but it would be way more than that if i cured all the back as bacon and made most of everything else into sausages.
To my mind, the customer should be getting a bargain for buying in bulk, as the seller is getting convenience by ridding themselves of half/whole animals without selling everything individually.
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If you just want some good pork in the cuts you want, then your local farm shop or farmers' market might be best for you.
If the half-a-pig-with-minimum-weight thing works for you, you'll do it again. You're not a bad person if it doesn't work for you, but neither is the seller a bad person for selling it this way.
You can sometimes ask for particular butchering, you may even be able to ask the butcher to make some bacon for you. But everything that isn't just taking it how it comes is of course going to put up the price.
When it comes to doing your own scheme, you'll no doubt want to offer something that would suit you. So you could work out some sort of Pack A, Pack B, Pack C set of options.
I recently slaughtered a Jersey heifer, and offered packs that would weigh 10kgs and contain a roasting joint, a pot-roasting joint, some steaks, some burgers, some mince, some stewing steak. No individual weights, I just left it to the butcher. So far everyone has seemed to be happy with what they got.
Some people like their joints bone-in skin-on, some want them boned and rolled, some like them stuffed. Some like the belly in a slab. Some would like some bacon, some won't want sausages, or do want sausages but also want rolled shoulder. Some want plenty of chops, some want more bacon less chops, or a loin joint and ribs. So you could try talking to your butcher and coming up with three or four different packs, each of which would use up half a pig but which offer a different selection of cuts. Prices may vary according to the amount of butchering required.
Adding bacon or ham as an option might give delivery issues, as the customer would need to take the pork as soon as butchered, then come back for the bacon a while later. But your butcher may be prepared to oblige.
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I sell half lambs cut up at the Abbatoir. They charge me per kilo and I sell on the same basis. To me as the seller and as a consumer that seems to be the fairest way
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Out of interest, . . . . . .what were you expecting for a half pig?
Our standard half pig boxes are made up on chops of various types, joints, belly pork and sausages. It's £100 for between 22-25 kilo.
So if I bought a half pig from you for 100 quid and it weighed 25kg? And then I bought another one for the same price but it only weighed 22kg? That's exactly why people get annoyed and start complaining on internet forums. Why don't you weigh each half and charge the correct price based on whatever it is per KG?
Because I am not making a full on business out of it.
And to be accurate, I sell it as 22kg, making it £4.50 a kilo. It's just that some people are lucky enough to get a couple of extra kilos on occasion, due to inherent slight differences in how the pigs kill out.
I've found that people would rather know a set price, and a (very close) approx weight, rather than being told a kilo price, and then not being exactly sure what their half pig would cost.
I have not had one complaint about it yet. But when I priced it per kilo, plenty of folk said "just tell me what it costs in real terms".
I wouldn't say that's 'exactly' why people complain on internet forums. Chill out! We're not all trying to take over the world of pig selling one joint at a time.
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The pleasure of smallholding is it diverse and we don't all have to do it the same way. The economics vary from the subsistence people to the hobbyist, and the market depends on where we live.
I do my half pigs to friends who are interested in where they come from, how they are kept and are quite happy to take a half based on the price of producing it plus a Mark up. It is not economical for them that it not the point.
Cuts depend on what the butcher is prepared to do and what we ask for. The sausages are high meat content- that is the point!
I would be very happy if my 'customers' had specific requests regarding the butchering.
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Out of interest, . . . . . .what were you expecting for a half pig?
Our standard half pig boxes are made up on chops of various types, joints, belly pork and sausages. It's £100 for between 22-25 kilo.
So if I bought a half pig from you for 100 quid and it weighed 25kg? And then I bought another one for the same price but it only weighed 22kg? That's exactly why people get annoyed and start complaining on internet forums. Why don't you weigh each half and charge the correct price based on whatever it is per KG?
Because I am not making a full on business out of it.
It doesn't matter if you only do one pig a year or if you do a hundred. You're selling a product to a customer so it's a business transaction. I get visited by the trading standards every now and then and have to demonstrate to them that my weighing/pricing/labelling is how it should be. If it wasn't correct they'd make me put it right so I prefer to get it right in the first place.
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I think it is a saving, providing you compare it to the equivalent .....
i.e. outdoor reared, named breed, probably rare breed, known provenance, local produce etc etc not to the so called pork sold at tesco value or asda tap your arse commercial breed grown in a blink of an eye. tasteless crap.
also the buyer has the option.... buy elsewhere... i only grow on 3-4 a year and have a waiting list for the 1/2 pigs!