Walk The Pork - The Hotelier

We met Les and Vanessa Scott though our involvement in The Brecks Food Festival last year. 

Owners of Strattons Boutique Hotel & Cocoes Cafe in Swaffham they are both passionate about sourcing products & produce from Norfolk producers and in particular The Brecks. As a result such diverse things as the hair conditioner found in the hotel bedrooms to the pork used in The Brecks Sausage Roll are both ‘Made in Norfolk’. Their commitment to walking the walk as well as talking the talk means that last year Vanessa was awarded the coveted ‘Norfolk Food Hero’ award – for amongst other things the interest that they show in small and  unknown artisan producers helping to promote them and raise their profile.

Vanessa agreed to talk at Walk The Pork about the place of the hotelier in a local food web and the benefits that local producers bring to her business.

"From a hoteliers point of view it is important to be able to showcase all the products we have to offer here in the Brecks. Being able to talk to our customers about the produce we offer them makes a huge difference and thus opportunities to visit farms that supply us are very beneficial.

 Local businesses make up our unique visitor experience. Most of our weekend guests come down from London to enjoy the countryside and they really value the stories and experiences behind our local businesses and producers. Things that people who live in the countryside often take for granted. Here in the Brecklands we don’t need a “bells and whistles” attraction, we have the experiences here and we should celebrate them."

Vanessa sources the pork for The Brecks Sausage Roll as well as bacon & sausages for guests from Impsons Butchers in Swaffham who in turn purchase their pork from Scotts Field Pork.  From Field to fork in less than 6 miles and three family businesses supported by this particular food web.

Walk The Pork - The Agronomist

Sue Lord is a Norfolk based agronomist with an interest in environmental schemes as well as mainstream farming.

She kindly agreed to talk to the non farmers amongst us at ‘Walk The Pork’ about the topology of land in The Brecks and also briefly explain the benefits of outdoor pig farming to the area.

Fen Farm has a typical Brecks soil type of sand over chalk. With light land and no irrigation anything that will improve soil quality is a bonus and as such pigs are an important part of the crop rotation on this 150 acre farm.

Rob rents about a third of the farm on a two year rotation which means the pigs are moved onto a different bit of land on the farm every two years. The pigs usually follow a cereal crop and are succeeded by fodder beet.

 Growing some form of beet on land recently vacated by pigs is quite common in The Breck as it means that the amount of nitrogen input (fertilizer) required is reduced.  The soil fertility is greatly improved by rotted pig muck as well as the housing straw which is spread onto the land and helps to increase organic matter in the soil. This is a great improvement to Breckland soil which is naturally very low in organic matter. Having a high organic matter is important on all farms as it improves the water holding capacity of the soil & so improves drought tolerance – on Fen Farm it is even more so as there are no irrigation facilities.  Organic matter also improves the general health of the soil by increasing friendly microbes & so enhancing the soil ecosystem.

So the pigs in the rotation improve the quality of the soil which increases crop yields and at a lower production cost through the reduced fertilizer use. Nitrogen fertilizer is one of the largest input costs because it comes from oil; it is also a big contributor to greenhouse gases. Reducing the use of nitrogen is beneficial to the farm’s profitability & reduces its carbon footprint.

Walk The Pork - The Butcher

Charlie Mills (right) with Gerard King of Suffolk Food Hall (centre) and Rob Simonds (left)

 

Almost three years ago to the day Scotts Field Pork was facing disaster. 

To cut a long story short the catering butcher that we had worked with for several years on an exclusive basis found that they were not able to pay us – leaving us in the long term having learnt a valuable lesson in credit control but in the short term scratching our heads as to how exactly we were going to pay our feed bills. 

A call for help was put through to Tastes of Anglia who in turn introduced us to Charlie Mills - the man who literally saved our bacon! 

Since then we have not looked back. Charlie has been incredibly supportive of everything that we do at Scotts Field Pork. We are not his only project - Charlie is a great fan of slow food in all it's forms as this article on The Telegraph website which focuses on Caroline Cranbrook's work in East Suffolk shows.

Here is what he has to say about Bramfield Meats and their relationship with Scotts Field Pork:

“Bramfield Meats is a fresh meat wholesaler and bacon curer based in Halesworth, Suffolk.  We supply high class family butchers, farm shops and caterers. We are always on the lookout for the best product our money can buy us, we look under rocks and through hedges for something special and different to offer to our customers. 

About 3 years, I had the good fortune to come across Robert and Sarah Simonds and we stumbled on something quite unique. 

I have quite a lot of experience with all aspects of livestock production and I have seen many systems of producing pigs, but I hadn’t come across one quite as good as this, I couldn’t quite believe it when I saw it.

Robert is an absolute master. He’s taken on one of the most complicated pig breeds left in the country. I don’t know quite how he does it but somehow, through a lot of hard work and experimentation he has managed to adapt The Large Black to an acceptable modern day standard whilst still keeping its original values. On behalf of Bramfield Meats and your loyal following of retail customers, thank you for all your hard work. “ 

You can hear more about what Charlie has to say in the following Look East clip  which also features Norfolk Food Hero, Vanessa Scott.

Each year we serve Charlie’s ham on our walk  - needless to say it always goes down a storm – made from Scotts Field Pork we defy you to try a better one in this part of the world.

If you would like to source Scotts Field Pork meat, ham or bacon on a wholesale basis you can contact Charlie at Bramfield Meats on 01986 784222 or email him at charlie@bramfieldmeats.co.uk.

Walk The Pork - The Producer - Rob Simonds of Scotts Field Pork

Rob was asked lots of questions by our guests about our herd of Large Black Pigs and the way that we farm them - a summary of the Q & A session is shown below:

 

Why are Large Black Pigs so rare and why did you chose them as a breed to farm?

Here at Scotts Field Pork we have 60 Large Black sows and in-pig gilts. To give you an idea of how important this is there are only 300 registered sows in the national herd.  We birth register all the pure litters that we have however do not register any of the sows until we are convinced of their confirmation & breeding ability. 

Although rare today at the beginning of the twentieth Large Black pigs were the choice of most small scale farmers.After the war however the demands put upon farmers to‘improve’ farming practices meant a decline in all the coloured native species in favour of the faster growing leaner white hybrid.

The advantage of the large black sow is they are very easy to work with. They have a fantastic temperament, they’re also reasonably productive and take good care of their piglets. The large black sow is absolutely perfect for outdoor pig farming, they don’t suffer from sun burn and produce the most fantastic pork.

How do you farm & why farm pigs in The Brecks? 

We rent a proportion of this 150 acre farm which is situated in The Brecks next to Oxburgh Hall. The pigs here are part of the crop rotation

Our system here is very simple. We bring a sow into a farrowing paddock a week prior to them farrowing, she then has her babies and suckles them for about 6 weeks. The sow then goes back to the boar and the litter stays in the same paddock for the rest of their life. The whole process from birth to slaughter, takes about 22 weeks. 

The reason this system works so well on this unit is because it is Breckland soil and it’s pure sand, this means that whatever the weather, we are still able to walk and drive around the unit. We leave the sows and piglets year round in their huts with plenty of straw.  Because of their docile temperament and hardy nature we actually lose lose very few piglets either to disease or being rolled on by their mothers both of which are problems you would face daily on a large commercial unit. 

What do you feed the pigs on?

We feed our sows, boars, gilts and fat pigs sow rolls, these contain crushed cereals, protein, minerals and vitamins. We feed our weaned piglets creep until they are big enough to move onto sow rolls. We control the amount of food our growing pigs eat so they don’t get too fat or too thin. About 60%of the overall cost of keeping pigs is buying feed.  The price of feed differs depending on the quality and quantity of crops produced each year.

Why do you use a Duroc as the terminal sire?

Most butchers want a big and lean pig and at Scotts Field Pork we utilize the Duroc genetics to achieve this. The benefit of crossing other breeds with Large Blacks is the progeny grow faster so I can take them to heavier weights without them getting too fat. When we first started, we bred pure Large Blacks and ended up with small and fat pigs. We use the Duroc boar not only because the pigs produced have a bigger carcase but this particular cross preserves intramuscular fat which keeps the juiciness of the meat produced.  We have to experiment to try and produce the best pig possible for our butchers. For many years famers have produced pigs the way they have been told to, but in my opinion this produces a fairly tasteless meat, here at Scott’s field pork we’re trying to change this. 

Why eat pork?

Pork is still very good value compared to other meats, because it is a lot cheaper. As a result of the horse meat scandal the price of beef and lamb has escalated however pork still remains competitive. 

Walk The Pork - The Inspiration

‘It is a sign of our increasing separation from nature that we are losing sight of where food comes from and how it is produced. The way we buy it adds to this alienation. Food once at the heart of towns & communities, integral to their rhyme & reason is now often found in big boxes on the edge of town’

Says Monty Don is his introduction to From Field to Fork The value of Englands local food webs. A report published last year by The Camapaign for Rural England after a five year project mapping local food webs.

It was this report that provided the inspiration for Walk The Pork this year. Our guests were all part of The Scotts Field Pork Food Map. Each demonstrating that by buying our pork and thus keeping the pound that they spent within their own rural economy they help not only our business and their own but also support employment within the wider economy - in particular tourism which is vitally important to Norfolk.

During the day we asked different businesses and organisations within The Scotts Field Pork 'Food Chain' to talk about the benefits of supporting local food production. Over the next few weeks we will be running a series of blogs highlighting what they had to say.

We hope that you find these blogs both interesting and informative - as always your comments are very welcome. It would be great to get a conversation going about getting back to a position where not only does the shopper know the provenance of the meat or bread that they are buying but also they have a real connection with the person that they are buying from and a genuine understanding of how the food that they eat is produced.