• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Switch to Organic Serves Up Success for Farming Family

Posted on: Tuesday, 14 February 2006, 12:00 CST

By STEVE DUBE

Success tastes sweet for a young farming couple from Montgomeryshire. Jonathan and Sally Rees's organic mail order company, Welsh Farm Organics, has been named overall winner in the Green Directory Taste Test, taking five of the competition categories and the award for the Most Outstanding Product.

The couple, from Tyn Y Fron Farm, Mochdre, near Newtown, set up their business in 2002 to market meat produced on the 620-acre family farm where 29-year-old Jonathan was born and brought up.

The aim of the enterprise is to make the most of the farm, which supports Jonathan's parents, Alun and Patricia Rees, and his brother Daniel and wife Claire with their three children - Byron, Sara and Sophie.

An independent panel of 16 guests decided that their meat, prepared and cooked by chef Gordon Rogan at the Grange in Downham, Essex, was the tastiest of 23 organic competitors.

The judges said the 'beautiful rib roasts marbled with golden fat' on the Welsh Black beef roasting joint, and their beef and garlic sausages had a fantastic flavour.

The pork roasting joint was also singled out as a winner, and their Cut of Pork, which the judges observed 'remained moist when cooked, with the fat a wonderful golden colour and the taste was sensational', was named Most Outstanding Product.

It all began when Jonathan returned to the family farm after a few months travelling abroad.

'After I left school I did not bother with further education and went straight home to the farm,' he said. 'Then I saved up and Sally and I toured Australia, New Zealand and Kenya with friends through the Young Farmers Club, and we were inspired by the people we met, especially in Africa, and how they made use of things.'

The home farm began to convert to organic in 1999, although Jonathan said their farming methods meant they were already halfway there before they started.

'Farming became very interesting because we had to seek alternatives, but reducing stock numbers cut out a lot of problems.'

The family farm now runs a closed flock of up to 1,100 Welsh Mountain ewes alongside a 60-strong Welsh Black suckler herd.

It was one thing to convert to organic production, but another thing to reap the benefits.

'We had a problem marketing and we thought, what's the point of being organic if we can't sell it,' recalled Jonathan.

The couple received business advice from Farming Connect and a processing and marketing grant from the Welsh Development Agency, which enabled them to build an on-farm processing unit comprising a number of separate chill rooms, cutting and preparation areas, freezers, offices and storage facilities.

Following training from a local butcher, Jonathan prepared all the meat himself, and they started to sell through the internet. Jonathan's training means he is also able to offer a professional butchering and processing service to local farmers.

Seventy per cent of sales now come from the restaurant trade, mainly in London, but also in Brighton, Cardiff and Ludlow, and a further 20% is through their on-line shop at www.welshfarmorganics.co.uk

Nearer home they supply Welshpool High School with their own organic lamb and beef and pork, chicken and turkey.

'We supply the school with our own Mochdre range of organic sausages, which were chosen by the pupils themselves in a blind tasting,' said Jonathan.

'These include our new organic beef and sun-dried tomato range as well as organic gammon, organic ham and organic bacon, which we source from other farms.'

Their latest product, Maldwyn Cure, named after their 13-month- old son Maldwyn, is an organic air-dried Welsh beef which has been compared to the classic Italian delicacy, Bresaola.

Source: Western Mail

More News in this Category