[mackenzro]

Hello, I'm after some advice regarding a business idea I've had, it is still in the very early stages but I wanted to find out if you though there was appetite for it within the small holding community.

I work for a city farm and we have been selling meat direct to restaurants for over a year now. We now cannot match demand and I thought combining with other small holders in the area to supply restaurants may be a good way to expand. The small holders would be able to achieve a good price for their livestock but would not have to commit to any level of supply. Contact with restaurants would already be establish and the prohibitive equipment costs (chill van) would be taken care of.

So I have a couple of questions:

Is this something you would be interested in as a small holder or do you only rear meat for personal consumption?

Have I come up with a concept that already exists and already being well used by small holders without 3rd party input?

How do you get rid of excess livestock at the moment?

Any comments feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

[Dogwalker]

What area are you in?
It sounds like a good idea to me, don't know if anyone else is doing it.
I sell some meat to a few friends but will probably be in the situation next year of needing an extra outlet.
It's the part of my life here that I don't like dealing with.
I'm fine with taking animals to the abbatoir - just finished putting half a pig in my freezer and sold the other 5 halves but I don't like organising the selling so someone else dealing with that part would be great.

[Fleecewife]

An obstacle I can see is that smallholders keep a wide variety of sheep breeds, from commercial, through rare breeds to primitives.  Restaurants might prefer to be able to specify the breed, in which case it could devolve back to individual producers to have enough of their breed to satisfy the need.  It depends I suppose on the number of smallholders involved.
The restaurants would need to embrace seasonal availability.

Your scheme certainly warrants further consideration and research, and is the kind of thing we would have been interested in a few years ago when we had far more animals going for meat.  We breed mainly for breeding stock, so it's only those which don't make the grade that go to the abattoir.

The RBST has or had a scheme for marketing rare breeds meat, but the criteria were way too complicated for us, and the participating butchers far too far apart.
Currently if we have more  sheep for slaughter than the family can use, then we sell to friends, who form a small orderly queue 

The prices asked and obtained for meat by smallholders varies greatly across the board.  To sell at an advantageous cost to the restaurants, while getting a good price for the producers and a cut for yourself could be a concern.

[Backinwellies]

What do your restaurants pay?  and I don't suppose they buy whole or halves so what are you left with?   This generally seems like a good idea ............. but agree with Fleecewife  can see lots of problems with consistency and wonder if they really pay enough over and above what we are currently getting selling halves direct to make it a viable.

[honeyend]

I have been thinking about this to as when I killed my pigs we had far more than I could possibly store. I approached a small deli about sale or return on further kills.
 I also have spare out building I could convert to a sales area. I think the biggest problem is co-ordination. If you could get producers to e-mail in advance what they were butchering and when then you could give outlets advance warning about what will be available, so they can adjust the menu for the specials board in advance.
 For profit margins restaurant often use cheap cuts so I do not see the problem in marketing cheaper cuts, its the added value that the chef puts in,the growth of ox-cheek , lamb shanks, and flavoured sausages on posh menus show this.
 I think just getting a database and getting smallholder to book in when they are sending animals to the abattoirs and butchers would be a start. Even if a producer like me only sent a couple of animals a year it could be a useful supply as long as you have advance warning, the more regular suppliers could perhaps have the butchering carried out to the restaurants needs prime cuts could still be sold at the farm gate.

[Jukes Mum]

My brother is a chef in a restaurant and his comment would be that if they have (for example) lamb shank on the menu, then they want 50 lamb shank cuts, not 25 half lambs.

[Backinwellies]

My brother is a chef in a restaurant and his comment would be that if they have (for example) lamb shank on the menu, then they want 50 lamb shank cuts, not 25 half lambs.

As I thought ..........

[mackenzro]

Thanks everyone for your feedback, I'm in Edinburgh. At the moment and we distributed to 7 restaurants and we sell whole/half pigs. Some take whenever we have animals and other take on the odd occasion when they want to do something special such as charcutrie.
We are in a difficult situation now where we want to expand our client base and supply more regularly but we just don't have the space to rear more stock.

My feeling is that Honeyend is right, it may be a case of small holders letting me know when they have spare stock and I could let them know if I can take or if they should take to market. I not sure of the numbers yet, there is a lot of development to be done but I am (tentatively) confident we can get the smallholder a better price for their "slow grown full of flavour pork", than they would at an auction.

Your feedback is very helpful thank you for taking the time to reply!

 

[Calvadnack]

The Land workers Alliance group may be able to give advice on their forum.  They are very keen to help community and small farmers supply local food. Www.landworkersalliance.org.uk

[hughesy]

As I see it there are a whole load of problems with this. Mainly relating to the very random quality of carcass that will find it's way to your customers.