This year, The Better Food Company – based in St Werburghs and on Whiteladies Road – are challenging conventional turkey breeding methods…by breeding and rearing their own.
Better Food Company MD Phil Haughton has been rearing organic Norfolk Black turkeys in a Somerset orchard, where the birds are able to enjoy a free range life – “flying up into the trees and perching on old logs while enjoying the great British weather every day.”
90% of the 10 million turkeys reared for Christmas each year come from intensive units where they can’t mate and breed naturally, and so artificial insemination has become the norm. Not so with The Better Food Company’s turkeys, who breed naturally, mating in the spring and producing fertile eggs that are hatched later in the season.
“I won’t go into the details of the lives of the stags”, says Phil, talking of the conventionally-reared turkeys, “but suffice to say it’s not a pretty picture. Our birds, on the other hand, are happy and free. They live a full life to the last, and no travelling for them either as the abattoir is situated on the farm itself. We think that this system represents the highest animal welfare possible for any Christmas turkey. And you’re guaranteed lots of good succulent meat, as well as a truly fabulous, deep and full flavour.”
With a long history of offering local and organically produced food at affordable prices, The Better Food Company are taking this a step further this year, providing shoppers with all they need for the festive period from within a 10 mile radius of Bristol – a vast difference to the 49,000 miles that the Soil Association estimate the average Christmas dinner has travelled.
For more information or details of how to order, call 0117 935 1725 or see www.betterfood.co.uk.