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.

A media star is born .........

 

We were lucky enough to be joined at 'Walk The Pork' this year by Look East's Chief Reporter Kim Riley and his crew.

For those of you that did not catch that nights edition here is a taste of the day's events.

As I am sure you will agree they did us proud!

Walk The Pork

The sun shone. We were joined by a great gang. The Grub was great and so was the conversation.

Over the next few weeks we will post photos and details of the themes that we discussed - as you can see we were privileged enough to be joined by some real local heroes!

 Who was there?

Robert	Simonds	Scotts Field Pork
Charlie	Mills	Bramfield Meats
Mark	Allen	Fleetwoods Butchers
John		guests of Fleetwoods
Derick		guests of Fleetwoods
Tony	Potter	Impsons Butchers
Gerard	King	Suffolk Food Hall
Scott	Chapman	Hawkedon Queen
Debbie	Hartley	Fen Farm, Gooderstone
Sarah	Simonds	Scotts Field Pork
Lynda	Eddy	Scotts Field Pork
Neil	Hart	Oxburgh Hall
Rebecca	Gant	Oxburgh Hall
jeanette	Marriot	Oxburgh Hall
Claire	Martinsen	Breckland Orchard
Graham	Cormack	Tax Assist Accountants
Vanessa	Scott	Strattons
Les	Scott	Strattons
Keith	Brown	Visit East Anglia
Maria	Mercer	Visit East Anglia
Pete	Waters	Visit Norfolk
Susie	Emmett	GreenShoots
Nick	Emmett	Farmer
Sue	Lord	Agronomist
Catherine	Smith	Foxholes Farm Shop
Mr	Smith	Foxholes Farm Shop
Tony	Hook	Norfocopia

Open Farm Sunday - White House Farm Oxborough

Nick & Susie Emmett very kindly asked us to get involved with Open Farm Sunday again this year.

Their farm which is at Oxborough in the heart of The Brecks is partially laid over to the stewardship scheme and thus is a treasure trove of wild flowers & grasses. They have a flock of about 100 sheep that they graze and a few head of Angus Cattle

This year we took 'Ethel' one of our Large Black gilts with eight of her week old piglets. We had a competition to see who could guess the name of the piglets.

Tony Hook of Norfocopia also got involved. Forager extraordinaire & based on what was the old Didlington Estate he cooked up spicy meatballs, belly and kebabs all from Scotts Field Pork, foraged foods and honey from White House Farm

Thomas guessed the name of Ethel's piglet

 

Tony Hook cooking & Susie Emmett tasting Scotts Field Pork

Joe Emmett shearing

Swedish visitors ......

Last year we had visitors from Denmark, France & Holland literally dropping in to see us but last Thursday we had a more formal visit from Swedish Pig Farmers Catarina and Jan Arvidsson who came with their daughter Mari.

Mari is studying Environmental Science at UEA for one year and whilst on a visit to see her, her parents were also keen to take the opportunity to visit a UK pig farmer. We are very  honoured that through The NPA website they chose to visit Scotts Field Pork 

The Arvidsson’s live on a 250 hectare organic farm in northern Sweden which grows some cereals but is mainly laid to pasture for 80 suckler cows and their calves as well as a 120 sow breeding herd.

Jan explained that from November to March the temperature does not rise above zero so all livestock has to be housed in the winter. As the pigs are organic their winter quarters have access to outdoor runs and then in the summer the entire herd is moved outside to live in arcs as in the UK. They are fed on organic home grown cereals and beans mixed with silage as it is a requirement that 50% of the diet must be produced on the farm.

Unlike us The Arvidssons do not sell directly to butchers. Their pig enterprise is part of a group of linked small scale family farms which between them produce 25,000 organic pigs a year for a Swedish supermarket. Some farmers have the sows and piglets up to 10 weeks of age they are then moved on to another farm to take them up to slaughter weight. Each producer receives an agreed price for their pigs as part of a 3 year contract. 

It was great to meet like minded people from another country who do the same job as me. We farmers are notorious for thinking that we work in isolation. It was interesting to hear from fellow farmers from a different country that they are experiencing similar problems to those that we have in the UK. 

We can also learn from one another too. The Arvidssons were very impressed with our Large Blacks as they farm commercial hybrids - they were very interested in the fact that here in the UK we are able to produce a commercial product from a rare breed pig something that is almost unheard of in Sweden as they no longer have their native breeds.

In turn I was fascinated by the fact that they feed their stock on silage - something that I will definitely be reading up on.

If you would like more information on The Arvidsson farm please visit their website

The Missing bits from 2012 (Part Two) - Pictures from 'The Farm walk'

On May 25th last year we opened the gates to Scotts Field Pork for the day and welcomed about twenty guests. These included interested members of the press, the famous butchers with whom our business would not exist, our local MP Elizabeth Truss and her aide Fiona Walker.

The sun shone upon the righteous that day - I think it was the only weekend the entire summer when we had no rain.

Needless to say we had a fantastic time talking about Large Black Pigs to a captive audience and as usual 'our girls' wowed their guests. The response we have had since has been incredible form being nominated for both The Norfolk Food Hero & Countryside Alliance Rural Enterprise Awards to articles in both regional and national magazines and newspapers the latest being January's edition of LandLove Magazine.

Before I let the pictures paint a thousand words I would like to say a belated thank you to the neighbours and friends who helped us on the day - Oxburgh Hall who allowed us to use their car park, Debbie Hartley who did the on site catering, Lynda Eddy who co-ordinated the day, Susie Emmett who planned our PR campaign and last but not least Mark of Browns Kitchen and his amazing chefs who showed how our strong our  local food chain is by serving tea at his restaurant after the walk.

Many Thanks to all who came - we hope to see you again later this year.

Lunch ...

Consisted of Mrs Hartley's  famous sausage rolls and a pig cake she baked with Charlie's ham rolls & Johns pork pie - all made of course from Scotts Field Pork (except the cake which is a portrait!)

Rural Enterprise Awards

Its a pig's life

On Tuesday we welcomed The Rural Enterprise Awards judge William Burton to Scotts Field Pork. Someone was smiling on us as it was one of the few rain free days that we have had this winter.

Feed Time

William had come to see the set up that we have here at Oxborough and to discuss with us our role in supporting a local food economy.

Like most people who visit our herd of Large Blacks he was impressed not only by the animals themselves but also the system that we use to rear them. Although we are not organic the layout of the paddocks is heavily influenced by Helen Browning. Unfortunately we do not have enough space to follow her system precisely but have tried to accomodate her theories within the acreage that we have available. Although we have recently introduced a basic vaccination programme for our sows this is really an insurance policy only. Touch wood they have for the past seven years maintained a high health status with no routine medication and it is my opinion that although The Large Black is renowned for being a very hardy breed Helen's system has contributed to their welfare.

Rob showing William the sandy soil

We also discussed the suitability of The Brecklands for outdoor pig rearing - sand over chalk is very free draining and thus makes a prefect enviroment for pig keeping which in turn makes a valuable contribution to the farm rotation by increasing the soil organic matter. This leads to a significant yield increase on subsequent crops.

The Large Black pig of course has a valuable gene pool which we are keen to maintain -fans will already know this includes hardiness, docility and the ability to produce and rear large litters. The pork that is produced has a succulent texture and in our opinion is the best you will taste.

No 223 - a real beauty!

We then retired to our local Hostilery The Bedingfeld Arms for coffee and Scotts Field Pork Sausage Sarnies -these were supplied by Impson Butchers At the pub we talked about the relationship we have with our butchers and in turn their relationship with their customers. Together we offer an affordable unique product that can compete on price with the supermakets but in terms of service and quality is unmatchable.

William asked where we saw ourselves in 10 years time - here in the pub with a pigman up the road Rob joked - but a dream would be to see other small herds of Large Black pigs with farmers selling their pork to local butchers throughout the country. This way the Large Black would be as rare as the Gloucester Old Spot rather than the Siberian Tiger and that would be a real achievement for everyone involved in the preservation of this wonderful animal.