Yorkshire Forward Column: Making connections from farm to store

The Yorkshire Forward funded Farexchange Programme has established links between award-winning food and drink retailer Booths and is marketing a unique brand of quality Yorkshire beef after the Farexchange team helped put a supply chain in place between the region's beef farmers and the food store.

Beef into Booths is an exciting initiative by the retailer and the National Trust to provide shoppers with choice cuts of meat from traditional beef animals through Booths' network of stores in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbria and Cheshire.

Booths' aim is to sell meat from cattle reared in the northern counties. To be eligible for the scheme the animals must be sired by a traditional breed bull such as the Hereford or Angus, be born and bred on a National Trust holding and the farm must be Freedom Foods assured.

Farexchange developed the scheme's parameters and pricing structure with the National Trust and Booths, so that premium price is paid for eligible cattle over and above the market average and farmers are rewarded for the quality of the animals supplied.

Supported by Yorkshire Forward and the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE), which is jointly funded by Defra and the European Union, Farexchange is operationally led by the English Farming and Food Partnerships Ltd. It was created specifically to ensure sustainable and secure food supplies by linking Yorkshire and Humber's farmers, food companies and retailers more effectively.

However, one shortcoming of this new supply chain quickly identified was that some of the land on the National Trust farms in Cumbria does not grow sufficient feed for the animals and a significant proportion required further finishing – unlike in Yorkshire's lowland areas which are ideal for finishing cattle for slaughter.

Farexchange addressed the issue by carrying out a review of National Trust tenants on estates in Yorkshire to identify farmers with the potential to finish the animals. Bay Tree Farm, adjacent to the National Trust's Fountains Abbey in Ripon, was one of a number of farms deemed suitable and is now finishing cattle from Cumbria for slaughter.

The North Yorkshire farm has a herd of mainly Hereford Cross cows and has the capacity to take on more animals to utilise grassland and buildings on the farm. Animals are finished entirely on produce grown at the farm making them 100 per cent self-sufficient in feed.

Farexchange then supported Bay Tree to attain its Freedom Foods status, allowing farmer Andrew Leeming to buy store cattle from two farms in South Cumbria – Nibthwaite Grange near Coniston and Fishwick Farm in Silverdale.

This transfer has secured animals for the Booths scheme which otherwise would have been sold on the open market. Mr Leeming now has 40 traditionally bred cattle and he knows where they have been reared, which is important to him from a biosecurity view point. He is looking forward to seeing the cattle grow and working with Booths in the future.

Farexchange has helped develop this opportunity, unique to National Trust Farmers in the area, and the supply of cattle will grow as more farmers become aware of the scheme.

The long-term aim of the initiative is to develop a producer-supplier group which can manage its own relationship directly with Booths and establish a network of finishing units to benefit store producers unable to finish effectively themselves.

CW 12/6/10