I want to eat ethically produced meat

[itsasecret1]

So I tried being vegetarian and I found it incredibly hard, mainly because DH is a rampant meat eater and I do all the cooking, making two separate meals was too much work and too expensive. We've come to a compromise (of sorts) to eat less meat and when we do have it - it needs to be ethically produced.

From what I've seen most supermarket meat is rubbish. The only one I'm considering using for meat now is Ocado / Waitrose. Does anyone shop there, can you vouch for their organic meat products?

We meal plan and stick to a budget of £240 a month for food, so this is going to be tough but what I'm considering doing is spending £60 at the start of the month on meat, stocking up the freezer and then using the remaining £47 a week to shop in aldi for all the other bits we need.

I just wondered if anyone did anything similar, had any tips or ideas?

*Frouby

That's interesting about Morrisons, I've always really liked their meat and they seemed to be good so it's good to know they're recommended!

Less meat and only eat organic free range.
I last bought meat at Xmas. A Duchy £££ chicken.

Heyha bet your piggies are happy porkies. I think my issue is that pork is so cheap and plentiful and I don't see many pig farms and I know the welfare standards (despite the supposed EU regs supposedly meaning a level playing field) aren't as good in Europe. And pigs are clever beasties and deserve better.

I have no problem with eating meat. But for both health and welfare reasons I would rather eat ethically sourced meat.

I need to have a good scout around locally and see what I can find. It's not just pork joints with pork. Its bacon, sausages and ham. We don't use a lot, sausages once a fortnight maybe, ham maybe 250g a week, bacon maybe once a month.

It's been easy enough to replace normal whole chicken and chicken breasts. But more difficut to find free range thighs for instance.

We have a butchers locally enough to get to once a fortnight, I will quiz them next time I am there.

I buy organic from Ocado when it’s on offer. (They usually have Duchy mince at 3 for £10 - only a 400g pack though)
Abel & Cole do meat as well as veg.
Organic eggs from Aldi & Lidl are a good price.
Yeo Valley organic milk from Tesco is fairly highly rated for animal welfare.

Farmers weekly has a map with farms where you can buy organic milk, & I discovered that the one nearest us also does meat, eggs etc. (I don’t like their milk though because it’s not homogenised & seemed less creamy than the Yeo valley)

www.fwi.co.uk/business/map-buy-milk-direct-farm

@Heyha

The issue with paddles is that because of pig anatomy they need to be placed exactly right to be effective - this is really difficult with a moving and slightly stressed Pig so mis-stunning occurs. This is why the large enterprises have moved towards CO2 stunning and research is investigating low-atmospheric pressure stunning. Both are better as they stun reliably especially LAPS but there is often a short period of respiratory distress prior to unconsciousness.

By mis-stunning I mean lack of stunning but also stunning injuries such as electrical burns to eyes, mouth etc.

Gotcha. So it's either switch to a big place that does gas stunning or cross my fingers that where I go now that has a 10 pigs a day limit (only two days a week as well!) is calm enough that they can get the paddles in the right spot the vast majority of the time. Not an easy one!

Those of you asking your butcher for more info, good on you, the more it gets requested the more likely they are to start buying stock produced in the way you request 🙂 remember they have to buy whole animals and the traditional butchers often only have limited storage and time so the demand needs to be there for them to make that business decision. But it can be done- the abattoir I used before I moved had a butchers attached and often used to ring round us smallholders to source a particular breed or style of keeping.

I recently saw a farmer lady advertising her lambs for sale privately On Facebook. I bought half a lamb for £70. Was delicious. It was locally raised, lived in fields with lovely shepherds looking after it, took two miles down the road to the abattoir at the end of its life, so much less stressful. Have a look for a local farmer. See pic for what I got for £70.

Yeah it’s tricky. You’d hope the numbers are small enough at your current place that they have the time to do everything properly. If you’ve observed and and not seen anything amiss then i’d Probably stick with what you know. I’m speaking generally in terms of commercial pork production but there will be exceptions to these issues in situations where more care can be taken

Oh I get asked all the time why don't you use big place half the distance away but it smells slightly of dead stuff even on a Monday morning and the staff always seem to need to move a bit brisk (not rude or horrible though to be fair). I'd rather mine had 20 minutes longer on the trailer, they don't seem to care too much once they're on.

At current place I saw one poor chap struggling to get a big cull sow out of the trailer where she was quite happy snoozing, thank you very much! After 10 mins of the usual 'please get up' niceties the head man said go drive round the block while we unload the next two and see if she fancies it a bit more after a mile of bumpy tracks!
So to PP who said they are all reared and killed the same I'd say it's very much a sliding scale.

The availability of quality abbatoirs is a big problem for farmers. We need more local small-scale operations, mobile places too.
Brexit is probably going to have an impact on abbatoirs as many of the vets & workers are from the EU I understand.

I've been looking into the same thing OP. We now order from our local butcher, visit the farmer's market and buy organic milk from Aldi. The taste of the meat from the butcher is phenomenal in comparison to most supermarket meat. Only thing I haven't worked out how to do is source affordable chicken - I'm not convinced supermarket free range is good enough ethically. If budget weren't an issue we would buy it from our local butcher/farm shop.

Hugh FW's Meat book is indeed excellent.

From what I've gleaned, pigs, cows and chickens have it the worst when it comes to mass factory farming. Lamb and mutton is better. Responsibly sourced game is best.

www.leechandsons.com

www.solitairefarm.co.uk

These are the places from which I buy most of our meat (and always the Christmas turkey or goose). The meat is second to none, with low food mileage, no long-term refrigeration, and properly hung beef.

I have been really impressed with the sourcing and quality of Field and Flower. They also give you a £25 discount off £50 spend if you use this link.
field-flower.mention-me.com/m/ol/hs1ya-2b9391afa5