Gazegill Organics has proved to be one of Lancashire’s big Covid success stories, with sales of organic meat boxes up 400 per cent.
The Robinson family have been farming their 250 acres in the Ribble Valley at Gazegill for more than 500 years. After turning fully organic in 1999, and then aged just 21, Emma started selling their meat at farmers’ markets.
‘We’ve always believed farming organically and producing healthy, happy animals gives the customer a better product. It tastes better too,’ she says.
Today, the company offers raw milk from rare breed shorthorn cows, beef and rose veal, pork and bacon from traditional pig breeds, organic chickens from Springfield Poultry and venison supplied by the Deer Society.
And it seems to be the previously unfashionable cuts, wild game and offal that have gained popularity. And their figures show it is the domestic market which has driven the rocketing demand for Gazegill’s products in a time of an absence of orders from restaurants,
Emma’s husband, Ian O’Reilly, says: ‘As well as venison, people want shin, oxtail, tongue, marrow, pigs’ trotters, cheek and heart. Our second biggest seller is ox liver and we’re asked for sheep’s brain a lot, too.’
The business supports 14 full and six part time staff and the boom in demand has led to reinvestment in computerisation. This business growth now sees 700 boxes of different cuts of meat, sausages and the nitrite-free gammon and bacon – cured in sea salt and molasses – leaving each week for delivery around the country. UK-wide, raw milk sales have gone from 850,000 litres to more than 4.5 million. It’s no wonder Emma has a waiting list.
Gazegill’s meadows are a Designated Biological Heritage site. 97 per cent of England’s traditional wildflower grasslands such as these have disappeared in the last hundred years, so Gazegill’s no-input farming practices are key to saving these remaining habitats. And, those meadows help to give the meat its unique flavour.
Gazegill’s new venture is planned to be the UK’s first completely ‘off grid’ restaurant. Due to open in spring, it will be powered by electricity generated on-site by a wind turbine and solar voltaics. Featuring an open kitchen, tandoor and wood ovens, it will seat 100 people inside and 60 outside, and private dining pods with their own grill pits. Everything on the menu will come from their gardens and local organic suppliers.
* You could name the new restaurant. Email your idea to: friends@gazegillorganics.com. If chosen, you will receive a hamper worth £150. Everyone who enters will be signed up to Gazegill’s newsletter, but can opt out at any time.
