In a climate where consumers are now counting food miles and looking for traceability in the meat they eat, keeping it local comes into it
There can’t be fewer food miles than food grown and sold on the farm or, in the case of Woodlands Farm at Kirton, delivered to the door of local customers.
Farmer Andrew Dennis says since the horse meat scandal there has been a “massive groundswell of interest” in where food comes from.
The farm supplies its own Lincoln Red beef and Lincoln Longwool sheep as well as locally grown turkeys and chickens, and Andrew says: “We are very committed to local food and have been for many years.”
Local organic food suffers from the perception it is expensive, when in fact Andrew says his price comparisons show it is “often cheaper than buying from a supermarket”.
Landlord of the Thatched Cottage at Sutterton Bob Lowrie needs no persuasion: he has tapped into a source of locally produced meat that gives him and his customers the reassurance of traceability they are looking for.
His meat is supplied by Lincolnshire Quality Beef, Pork and Lamb, a cooperative of county farmers and butchers. Bob buys carcasses that are butchered on site, the meat used in his restaurant and sold in his farm shop or online.
Bob says: “From a pure economics point of view, it was cheaper to buy meat in carcass form, but it also gives us control over quality.”