Charles keeps “Lazy Man’s Cows” that are Cheap to Keep - by Jennifer MacKenzie
MARK’S WINNING COMBINATIONS - by Jennifer MacKenzie
Angus and Shorthorn shine for young Irishman - Article printed by courtesy of the Scottish Farmer
Traditional Shorthorn beef is proving a top seller at a Bedfordshire farm shop - Browns of Stagsden
Hill Farming has a Serious Role to Play - Tofts Herd
Victoria Poolman talks Beef Shorthorn to Rob Paisley - Westmoor Herd
Easily Managed Beef Shorthorns - Lowther Shorthorns
Glenisla Beef Shorthorns
Traditional Shorthorn beef is proving a top seller at a Bedfordshire farm shop.
Jennifer Mackenzie visits Browns of Stagsden Farm Shop
With a family history of selling quality home-produced meat with the turkeys they reared for Christmas, Peter and Hilary Brown opened their Browns of Stagsden farm shop in March 2005.
Since then the business has grown and they are now selling through the shop each week three quarters of a beef animal, four to five lambs and up to four pigs.
“My grandfather started rearing Christmas turkeys in 1935 at Great Gransden in Cambridgeshire and he came to Manor Farm, Stagsden in 1947,” said Peter.
“When Hilary and I married we started selling freezer packs of beef and as a result of revamping the plucking shed for the turkeys we took the opportunity to convert a building into the farm shop and butchery,” added Peter, who has qualified as a butcher although now the demand is such that they can employ a full-time butcher, Jeanette Ray. Hilary’s sister Lindsay Fairweather also helps in the shop.
“We wanted to sell traditional breeds of meat and we went for the Beef Shorthorn because we liked them and they are easy to handle and quiet as most of the time there is just the two of us. We’re now running nearly 70 cattle which have to fit in with the other enterprises,” he added. Already the business has featured in the top 20 UK TV ‘local food heroes’ in their area.
“Another reason we chose the breed was for the ease of calving. Cows calve easily and calves are up and full of life shortly afterwards.”
The Browns also have 900 arable acres and rear up to 20,000 turkeys over the course of a year with most sold live for the catering trade and up to 1,500 for the Christmas trade, half are sold retail through the shop and the remainder to local butchers.
The Browns run a herd of 18 commercial cross-bred cows which are put to the Shorthorn bull and the progeny produces a bigger carcase with almost the same eating quality and marbling as the purebreds.
Pure-bred Shorthorns are bought from local pedigree herds at a variety of ages from weaned calves to almost finished and all finished animals are sold through the farm shop.
They linked up with pedigree Shorthorn breeders through the Shorthorn society website – principally Christopher Marler’s Wavendon herd at Olney, Buckinghamshire, Trevor Brown of Towcester and Harry Horrell’s Podehole herd of Peterborough.
“We found getting the consistency a little difficult as we didn’t have a licence to cut carcases over 24 months old and as a result we slaughtered some earlier than we would have liked to,” said Peter. “However, now we have had that extended by six months which gives us greater flexibility.”
“Christopher was selling his Shorthorns through the ring where buyers were not looking for the quality of the meat. We pay by weight at a price which compares with the higher end of the market for continental animals.
“It’s good to have a mix of suppliers and we have a board in the shop which tells customers where the beef has come from.”
The whole operation uses a minimum of food miles, including the local abattoir only seven miles away.
The purebred carcases average 300 to 350kg while the slightly larger crossbreds weigh 350 to 400kg deadweight and they kill out at more than 50 per cent. The carcases are matured for three weeks.
Customers, who come from the surrounding villages, from Bedford and Northampton and some even from Bristol, say they haven’t tasted beef like it. The texture of the meat and the marbling through it are completely different to continental meat.
Steaks are the most popular cuts and because no extra beef is bought in, the Browns are careful to balance the carcase, making burgers and ready meals such as lasagne, beef stew in port and savoury mince. They make up to 30 different sausage recipes, including beef, with as many as half a dozen different types on sale each week.
With up to 100 customers through the shop on a Saturday, they are keen to make further extensions to include a kitchen to expand their added value product range.
The finishing cattle are fed from the end of August on a diet of home grown wheat, barley, and silage as well as sugar beet and they are housed in November once the turkeys have gone. The close to finishing cattle are housed throughout the year.
“Although the farm and the shop are run as one business, the shop buys the animals from the farm and we calculate a margin for the shop. The total income from a beast would be virtually double from putting it through a market but out of that you have the abattoir charge and cutting time. There’s a reasonable margin but a lot of work in between.
“We can charge our customers a higher price because the meat is such good quality but I wouldn’t say we’re hugely expensive and would be comparable with top end supermarket prices.
“Because we deal with the whole carcase we can supply customers with any cut they want.
Both Peter and Hilary have always been involved with cattle – Hilary also worked with the Ridgedean British Blue herd at Leighton Buzzard and after completing her National Certificate in agriculture and dairying she was a herdsman at 18 years old.
They plan to have their own pedigree Beef Shorthorn herd and already they have some crossbred cows by their first stock bull Colnvalley Pioneer. The current herd sire Wavendon Gulfstream is a Chapelton Neptune son.
“Temperament is important to us. We have quite a few footpaths across the farm and the Shorthorns are so docile,” said Hilary
Rare breed pigs such as Large Black and Saddlebacks are bought in as weaners and finished on the farm on a pellet, wheat and barley diet as well as waste vegetables from the next village. Some will be finished outdoors in spinneys on the farm. Up to 230 are finished each year.
Early spring Suffolk lambs are bought from James Barker in a neighbouring village while over the summer months Suffolks and Charollais crosses are bought from Cartwright Farms, in the neighbouring village of Turvey and over the winter store lambs are bought from WE Cook at Bicester and the Browns finish them for the shop.
Sheep and pigs are slaughtered every week at Evans and Son in Marston Moretaine seven miles away.
Milk and eggs for the farm shop are also sourced locally.
Jennifer McKenzie