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Winter Newsletter - Issue 7

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Winter Newsletter - Issue 7

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East Riding Country
Pork


 

SPRING NEWSLETTER - ISSUE 8

Spring is Springing!


We are all eagerly awaiting the clocks to turn forward in a few weeks’ time.  Our lawn has had its 1st cut of the year and the weather is becoming a little more favourable for the markets.  Steaks and Sausages are excellent sellers in the shop this time of year and customers are eagerly awaiting spring lamb.  Have a look at our website for more information www.eastridingcountrypork.co.uk
 

BUTCHERS

Only 90 kcals, (and 2 weight watchers pro points) per sausage, the simply succulent sausage is simply tasty and simply slimming!
Analysing our products has enabled us to prove just how healthy our products are, and we want to SHOUT about it.  So, even if you are finding it hard to stick to your new year diet eating our sausages won’t make you ‘fall off the wagon’!

If you visit us at Beverley on a Saturday have you noticed the new banners?  We are slowly but surely giving the East Riding Country Pork image a bit of a revamp… with many more exciting changes in the pipeline, watch this space!

After initial quality problems with the new style labels we had to arrange a reprint, so far we think we have solved the problems so we apologise to any of our customers who have recently bought products from us with a dodgy label.

 

THE FARM

Pigs

The beginning of 2015 has been one for implementing some new ideas and changes.  Firstly we have new farm signs across most sites.  Refurbishment work of the nursery housing has continued and will be on-going over the year.  We have also been replacing the ceiling on our main building that houses breeding pigs, it has been a dusty old job but Steve and the team have been making a fantastic job of increasing the roof pitch, renewing the insulation and installing LED lighting. 

With over 450 piglets being born each week our maternity ward is a calm yet busy place.  We have installed some new hopper type creep feeders for the piglets.  The hoppers will mean that piglets have access to a high protein milky food as well as their mother’s milk.  We hope this will make the piglets super strong and healthy.

I would like to think our farm is cleaner than a hospital, this is because our farm operates on a 4 weekly rotation, so each area is fully washed and disinfected every 4 weeks, this farming process is known as a ‘hygiene plus’ system.  This is a huge cost to the business in water, time, detergent and disinfectant.  We have been working with the Schippers Farm Equipment suppliers to continually improve our standards and processes.  This quarter we invested in two ‘green-line’ disinfectant units. These are specialist units so that we apply the optimum amount of both detergent and disinfectant which will hopefully make a timely job more efficient and effective.
 

Arable

Unfortunately some of our crops are still stood in water so we look forward to the land eventually drying out over the next few weeks which will enable us to drill some spring barley.  Some of our land that was left fallow over the winter has greened up like a spring meadow, with Black Grass!  However this was just what we wanted as it has allowed us to spray it off with Glysophate and hopefully reduce the impact in our 2015 wheat & barley yields.

The arrival of our new Joskin grain trailer (pictured above) caused great excitement on the farm as we made sure our grain intake areas were wide enough for the trailer.  We hope this machine will reduce journeys required by a third and see us right for many years to come.  Matching our slurry tanker the machine was built in Belgium with a PTO driven pump that lifts the body of the trailer.   Three self-steering axles mean it handles well on our winding East Yorkshire roads.  It is also proven the more axles the less compaction it will cause on the land as the weight is more evenly distributed. 

As speedy car drivers many of you will be pleased to hear that tractor speed limits have been increased from 20 to 25mph.  Ok, it’s not a huge difference and still does not bring us in line with the rest of Europe but it is a step in the right direction.

Now that Spring is just around the corner the crops have started to grow, so we have started to apply a liquid fertiliser to give nutrients to the crop and in a few weeks’ time organic manure produced by our pigs will also be applied.

As I walk the fields on these lovely bright mornings it is fantastic to hear and see the wildlife, skylarks can be heard but not seen, ducks, deer, fox and pheasants all busy doing their thing.

 
MEET THE FARMER
Name: Peter Kirkwood
Title: Farmer/Proprietor of P S Kirkwood Farms & East Riding Country Pork
Hobbies: Farming, walking, holidays and going out with ‘the lads’
Interesting fact:  Peter has farmed all of his life; his father was an egg producer however Peter decided to keep a few pigs at the age of 13, his pork producing business started from there!
Words of Widsom: ‘Learn from expensive mistakes’
 

TRAINING

Our apprentice Dan is now coming to the end of his Bishop Burton College course, we are now looking at furthering his knowledge within the business.  He has recently attended a BPEX training day to learn how to monitor and control rodents that can become a problem  if not managed properly.  So he and Chris will now work together to limit activity on farm.  It has been widely publicised that this year is a particularly bad year for rats, which makes us squirm at the thought!

Angela has taken part in a 6 session business management course which was run by Fresh Start, in conjunction with Cundells and Stephenson land agents, the majority of the course was based around putting a business plan together for a farm case study which provided some vital learning tools.
 

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY INVOLVEMENT

Angela recently attended the NFU Annual Conference held in Birmingham, the conference looked at volatility within agriculture and firmly indicated how food and farming go hand in hand. 
There will be changes to Country of Origin labelling from April and we learned about changes in consumer shopping habits and the consumer requirement for both quality and value.  I hope readers of this newsletter gain a feeling for the effort that goes into producing food and positive impact on the local economy by buying local food.

We have been working with the British Pig Industry marketing teams with a campaign to promote the benefits of pork to consumers.  Pork sales have nationally been decreasing over the years so our aim is to improve the image of pork.  Over the coming months a ‘Pulled Pork’ campaign will be launched so keep an eye on your TV screens in the food magazines and on-line, check out their new website for some great pork recipes too - www.lovepork.co.uk
 

Thank you for taking the time to read our newsletter

**OFFER***
Spend £40 or more and get £5 off any purchase of local fresh meat, sausages or bacon.  Quote 'newsletter March offer' in store or at the markets.
 
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