About Us

Our mission is simple: to produce the ultimate pork, the finest in the UK, whilst having a beneficial impact on the environment

The cost of production is not important to us, but achieving the finest quality pork and using an organic, holistic slow food model for raising pigs founded on a respect for nature, the environment and the nature of the pig itself, is.

Why farm the ultimate pork?

We are devoted foodies here at Blackberry Farm we love our meat and have travelled extensively trying the very best Europe has to offer.

It was our conclusion that in the UK you can buy specialist grass fed beef and lamb that’s as good as we have found anywhere, but UK pork lags far behind our European cousin’s. Go to Italy, Spain even Hungary and see how excited they get about pork,  they have a real desire to produce the best. The taste, texture and fat quality is a mile away from watery grey cardboard with “globby” fat that you see on our supermarkets shelves.

The UK rare breeds produce tends to be far better than supermarket pork but is still worlds away in gourmet terms from some of the pork we have tasted in Europe. We looked long and hard but just couldn’t buy pork of this quality in the UK so we set out on our little 80 acre farm to produce ultimate pork ourselves.

We modelled our production on the finest Spanish farms and use their rules for quality.

1^st You need to start with a non-improved breed of pig bred solely for meat and fat quality not litter size, speed of growth, or carcass weight.

2^nd The animals need to be reared correctly, outside on a natural diet opposed to commercial feeds.

3^rd Time! Most pigs including rare breed are “fattened” up to weight by 4 to 5 months. By comparison the tastiest pork I have ever eaten was on pigs that had been allowed to grow slowly for 19 months.

ZERO CARBON FOOTPRINT PORK

From the outset the environmental impact of the farm was paramount to us. It was essential that the farm absorbs more Co2 gas naturally through the acres of forest and pasture of the farm, than we produce in the rearing and selling of our produce and in the running of the farm.

To get a negative carbon footprint we have gone back to old fashioned ways. As small scale old fashion farming techniques can be one of the most environmentally friendly ways. Small quantities of  livestock, live and thrive off the land on our farm, they are not just reared in barns.

Why go to all this effort? Well our meat consumption has a big impact on the environment. A study that was published in New Scientist Magazine, shows that the production of 1kg of beef in the USA releases greenhouse gases with a warming potential equivalent to 36.4kg of carbon dioxide. That is the amount of Co2 released by an average car every 160 miles, and the energy consumption is equal to a 100W bulb being left on for 20 days.

Modern intensive farming is very good at producing cheap food but this cheap food has come at a hidden cost to the environment.

There are more and more calls for us to cut our meat intake to help the environment, but by changing what meat we eat could help even more.

Pork and Chicken are an environmentally friendly option to ruminants like beef and lamb that expel a lot of green house gases just digesting their food. As pigs don’t emit methane their carbon footprint is considerably smaller.

Most of the carbon associated with pork comes from concentrated feed processing, transport, energy and manure management. A study conducted in Sweden claimed that raising organic pork outside, reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 40% and consumed 85% less energy. The Swedish organic pork had a greenhouse gas per kg of meat produced of around 2.3Kg far better than the American 36Kg per Kg of beef.

By using this organic model, feeding feeds that are grown on our own land and butchering at the farm, we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions further.

We had a thorough investigation into our carbon foot print over the whole farm with our acreage of grasslands and forest (45 acre). Experts calculated that the farm absorbs over 50 tonnes more Co2 in a year than we produce

So even after delivering your pork you will be eating one of the most environmentally friendly meats around.

 WHAT PIGS DO YOU USE FOR YOUR ULTIMATE PORK?

We searched around the whole of Europe and beyond including the UK, Spain, Austria, and Hungary looking at all the finest pig breeds and trying pork and pork products.

The perfect pig! The ultimate, we think is the black footed pig.

The black footed family of pigs includes amazing breeds such as the Iberico and the British Mangalitza.

We chose to breed the finest pure bred red Mangalitza and Spanish Iberico X Mangalitza, because the pork and cured products have been rated as some of the very best in the world and in the top 0.1% of all pork production made in Europe today.

HOW LONG ARE THE PIGS REARD FOR?

Like a fine wine it takes time for pork to develop a depth of flavour, good  marbling of the meat and for the fat quality to improve and to intensify with age. So we don’t fatten our pigs we just let all our pigs grow for 18 to 24 months that’s 4 times longer than the 4 to 5 months for standard rare bred pork. We do this because the ultimate pork cannot be rushed, it is the ultimate slow food.

WHAT DO YOU FEED YOUR PIGS?

You are what you eat! Our ultimate pig gets the ultimate diet!

Our philosophy is organic holistic which demands that our pigs have a life which is as close as possible to their wild boar ancestors, which enables them to exhibit their naturally social behaviour and most importantly but almost always overlooked - their feeding habits!

Pigs are Omnivores, like hedgehogs and badgers in the wild; they would forage for bugs and grubs but primarily eating grasses, leaves, roots, and fruits.

Virtually all farmed pigs in theUKincluding free range, are fed solely on commercial pig feed consisting of imported soybean meal, and corn with a mixture of vitamins, good for fattening (like fast food) but nothing like the pigs natural diet.

So we had to look how we could rear our pigs on a natural healthy diet that could be grown or sourced on or close to the farm. We feed mainly grasses, haylage, barley, root, root crops, fruit and berries when in season.

We grow 70% of the pig diet on the farm the rest is sourced locally; we hope to grow 80% next year.

(We still feed small amounts of supplementary specialist feed to ensure our pigs get all the nutrients vitamins and minerals they need)

Water comes fresh from our farm spring so there is no taint from chlorine or drain on water resources.

ARE THE PIGS FREE RANGE?

Yes, for the ultimate pig it has to be fit and free to roam. Our pigs have 25 acres of land and forests with shelters and streams, but we do bring them into barns if it gets too wet and cold and for their regular health checks.

 IS THE PORK EXPENSIVE?

We work hard to produce the finest produce not the cheapest.

It takes 4 times longer to rear the ultimate pig, in that time we are supplying the highest level of health, welfare, habitat and feed to ensure that the pigs live as pigs should, our pork is a similar price per Kg. as grass fed beef steak.

 Environmentally it’s the cheapest you can buy; our Ultimate pork is carbon footprint free.

THE PORK LOOKS  FATTY?

Our ultimate Black footed pork is bred to produce the finest fat as well as meat.

The fat on are pork is undeniably tasty, it tastes lighter and melts in the mouth thanks to a far lower melt temperature. It is white and so soft and juicy, not heavy, “globby” and greasy like other pork.

Our pork fat is so fine and is sought after for curing, cooking and baking .The lard can be whipped like cream and is the perfect fat for baking, frying, the best roast potatoes or adding the luxury feel to any cooking. We also make the back fat into lardons (see pic.).

Our pork fat is healthier too, due to higher levels of oleic acid and being high in monounsaturated fatty acids.

All

We are not certified with any organisation at the moment but hope to be soon.

Our pigs are reared in large open areas in family groups, using fully organic systems and feeds, holistic, GM free and free of chemicals and non-essential antibiotics.

We have not used any antibiotics in the last 3 years

BUTCHERY

All our butchery is done on site in our newly built, fully refrigerated facility by skilled butchers. We use seam butchery techniques sometimes referred to as continental butchery to ensure the finest end produce.

All our bacon, pancetta, sausages, cured meats, stocks and sauces are all made fresh by hand on the farm. 

CAN WE EAT PORK PINK?

A lot of people still believe they have to cook pork to well-done but this is just a myth.

The "safe" temperature for cooking pork is one of the most misunderstood - and distorted - aspects of food safety. Numerous so-called experts recommend massively overcooking pork.

Why should pork be treated any different than lamb or beef? It does not have to be!

40 /50 years ago there was a small risk of contamination with the roundworm Trichinella if you ate raw pork, but not now Trichinella is virtually eliminated in the western world.

In the United States between 1997 and 2001. The Americans consumed about 32 billion kg. of pork and in that time there where only eight cases of trichinellosis. This is such a low incidence for a country of more than 300 million people that trichinellosis ranks among some of the rarest diseases known to medicine. When it does occur, the disease is not serious, and is easily treatable. It is hard to see what all the fuss is about.

In the unlikely case that Trichinella is present it can be eliminated by cooking even at very low temps e.g. (58'C for 3 mins) or freezing.

Below are recommended minimum safe cooking temps for pork. Note the regulations do not even bother to list temperatures higher than 62’C / 144’F because the time required to eliminate any parasite would be less than a second.

At 60’C beef steak would still be rare

If you are looking to sous vide our pork at very low temps or would just love to try rare pork but are concerned about Trichinella we can shock freeze (very cold for a short time) any produce for you. This process does not change the product quality at all but will kill any potential contamination. Just add a note with the order.