Meat box delivery - recommendations?

[TwigletMonster]

Thinking of getting a meat box delivery - any recommendations of good suppliers, or ones to avoid?

Would preferably be organic, and deliver to South West.

I've used Riverford in the past and always found them really good.

There are hundreds I would aim for the smaller producer rather than a paying for riverford. Assumming your in Devon then you must have many a farmer doing direct sell. There are websites if you search local foods. Just because some have awards doesnt mean anything as the smaller seller cant enter these sorts of food competitions and the bigger ones seem to get handed them.

With beef your looking for a pedigree - such as longhorn, gloucester, welshblack, hereford. min 21 days maturing. Pref dry matured on the bone.

Why organic? it doesnt need to be - cows, lambs etc which are mainly graze outdoors makes no difference at all. Traditional, low intensity are the words you are looking for. There is little difference unless you totally understand what difference organic means in meat production.

I used to run a direct meat box scheme so I totally understand every aspect from rearing to packaging. Ask any questions...

We used to use Riverford, and really liked the fact they take the boxes back so you don't end up with hundreds to recycle.

The downside was that their standard box doesn't give you any choice over what you have and we were just getting too many things that DH won't eat, like pate.

We use our local farmers market now instead.

We use a farm in Hampshire, as the only ones that are really local to us charge a fortune for organic meat. This place is so competitive on price, and we've always found their service to be very good. I'll try to post a link! www.pfo-shop.co.uk/.

Thanks everyone.

Organic is a preference, as the way I understand it an organic accreditation refers to welfare standards and the food/diet the animal is given, both of which I think are important.

We did use Riverford a few years back, but I wasn't too keen on the quality of some of the sausages. I think it's when they'd just started though, so perhaps will give them another try. Barbeasty, I remember getting stuck with a few random items too!

We do have good farmers markets here (Bristol) but I'm trying to be organised and get a job lot of meat in to freeze in one go. The best market is on a Wednesday which would mean either driving into town with a baby or getting the bus, neither conducive to doing a stock-up - so mail order is the easy option!

Have you got a local butcher who would deliver?

I get my fruit and veg delivered from local greengrocer. I ring her up on a Monday, she delivers what I want on a Tuesday. She will advice what is in season/good/cheap at the time. I had an Able and Cole box for a while, but gave up after too many swedes and celeriacs. And hyperemisis. I did not eat anything for 6 weeks.

Organic is a preference, as the way I understand it an organic accreditation refers to welfare standards and the food/diet the animal is given, both of which I think are important.

But what is your understanding? This is a typical representation of the opinions of those who are not switched on to what the differences are. Certain people in the soil association throw about the accusations that we are continually using presticides and filling the animals with crap...this is not true a good predigree beef farmer will use the best and so the best to fatten the animal. Organic farmers still use wormers, presticides, drugs etc but is more the management of the grazing thats the difference. We managed pretty well for many years before the "trendy organic movement" took over. Believe me we have been to some truely shocking organic farms which are selling beyond premium range. Please dont believe the pretty pictures you see on fancy marketing literature, these places are more than likely very disappointing - most good farmers will let you visit the farm and talk about welfare and feeding.

Bigbarn.co.uk may be worth a look and if Bristol then you are surrounded by fantastic local farm producers.

I'm interested in finding out more about all this too as I've got into the habit of supermarket meat again which is not necessarily cheaper (when organic) & is, I think, worse quality than buying direct from farms.

We used to buy from Daylesford years ago but recently they've become super trendy & 'big' so I haven't even bothered to look at their website since I know prices will be ridiculously high.

Bacon, thanks for the bigBarn website, looks interesting. Would be interested to know more about your problems with the organic movement, sounds like you know a lot as an insider in this field, so would love to pick your brains more :).

Ok, so it sounds like the 3 options are 1. supermarket 2. local butcher/supplier 3. 'premium' organic box delivery scheme.

I will take a look at the bigbarn website, thanks for the link. Having compared Riverford and the supermarkets for price, supermarkets are cheaper at the moment. The difference is fairly significant, e.g £4 per whole chicken.

Bacon before I started researching local producers, what should I be looking for (or avoiding) in terms of the feed given to non-organic livestock?