Farm of the Week: The hurdles that halted a couple's lamb enterprise

East Yorkshire lamb used to be famous, they say. Around where they farm, in the Wolds, one field in three was once devoted to sheep, producing lambs from the best of grass, plus a few swedes in winter, grown in fields which could otherwise have produced corn or potatoes.

Those fields can grow a fresh mix of clover and grass for every grazing season, which grows healthy prime lambs like Mr Burdass's, bred from Texel-Suffolk crosses in both lines of parentage, 10-15 to the acre.

Further west, lambs are either spares from the hills, where the main business is producing tough little Mule ewes for breeding, or they are Mule offspring from the slightly better lowlands where the hill-bred ewes are crossed with fatter sires. In short, says Mr Burdass, they are nearly all bred to make the best of second-best conditions.

"All over the world, you put sheep on land you cannot do anything else with," he summed up this week. "What other branch of farming aims for below average as the standard?"

He has been asking that question since he came home from Harper Adams to join the family business, 20 years ago, and took on 250 acres, a thousand sheep and a cottage in Harpham, near Driffield.

Although he has a long-term interest in the Burdass land holdings, he was and remains a tenant and his job was to make the business work independently of the remaining subsidies for the land. Only a minority of sheep farmers would make a profit unsubsidised but he thought he could.

The supermarkets were becoming the essential customers and he switched from Driffield Market (now defunct) to Dawn Meats, at Carnaby, who wanted local grass-fed lamb for Marks & Spencer. It went well for about 10 years, until M&S decided they wanted all their carcases to be 20.5 kilos deadweight. His killed out one to three kilos heavier.

"M&S wanted consistency for packaging purposes and I suppose they knew what their customers wanted," says Mr Burdass, now 40. "But it meant I either took a price penalty or sent lambs for slaughter before they were at their best. Luckily, Dawn had good links with Europe and for a while, everything I sold then went to Belgium."

Meanwhile, he had married Zoe, 36, mother of their daughter, Eliza, aged nine. Zoe had worked in catering, and as the price of lamb dropped, they discussed possibilities. Surely there were Brits still looking for lamb as good as it got?

All the advice of the time was in the same direction. Farmers had to find niches. They had to get the customer to distinguish between one kind of lamb and another. They had to trade on local loyalties. They needed customers prepared to pay a bit extra for a bit special.

When Burdass Lamb launched, in 2006, Yorkshire Forward awarded it 3,000 in start-up money – a drop in the ocean of requirements, but a vote of confidence. More than 30 good Yorkshire restaurants eventually became customers.

James Mackenzie, who runs the Pipe & Glass, near Beverley, with wife Kate, told the Yorkshire Post: "It was absolutely top-quality lamb and I knew how Ian cared for his animals. I would buy it again tomorrow."

To meet the demands of the restaurants, however, the Burdasses had to hire butchers – and eventually to employ their own, in a unit in Driffield, kitted out for 30,000. Then they had to sell the cheap cuts they had left over.

Trying to get into the farmers' markets, they found themselves on waiting lists 18 months long. Meanwhile, they noticed, a lot of the sitting stall-holders were entrepreneurs rather than farmers. Mr Burdass has a few things to say about "pork-pie producers who have no pigs, ice-cream makers without any cows and 'farmers' who are doing 50 markets a month". The Roundhay Environmental Action Project, organisers of the market at Oakwood, Leeds, were the only ones to ask for evidence they were actual farmers, he says.

They also eventually sold at Harrogate, Otley, Hull, Driffield and Humber Bridge, and through three farm shops. But most of the customers were not looking to spend much. The Burdasses got their butcher to produce small cuts in the French style, seaming out individual muscles. Mrs Burdass worked alongside him, producing lamb burgers, lamb sausages, Moroccan meatballs, herb-rolled joints, mini-shoulders ... 50 products in all. But still there were long days of despair in the drizzle.

The restaurants required the best of 25 carcases a week, year round, and Mr Burdass was lambing from January 1 to June 1 to stagger his supplies.

In between the farming and the markets, they met online orders for direct delivery of freezer packs. But there was always a surplus of shoulders and breasts, because customers did not want them and there was a limit to their appetite for mince. Meanwhile, slaughter and accreditation were costing 20,000 a year – "for the privilege of selling the lamb you had reared".

Last Christmas, with lamb prices soaring, the Burdasses measured income against hours and decided enough was enough. If they had followed the markets, they would have been charging 45 for a leg which used to be 25. They could not do that to loyal customers.

They helped their butcher find another job. Mrs Burdass went back to working in catering. Her husband is taking his fat animals to Malton Market.

He said: "We didn't go broke. And we learned a lot. But it was a failure. If I was trying it again, I would do what a lot of the market people are doing – forget the farming and buy what I needed. If anybody says the public is crying out for local and best, I say don't bet on it. There are not many of us left still trying to produce sheep on the traditional Wolds system."

Mr Burdass can name two independent butchers who buy his animals at Malton – James White of Cranswick, Driffield; and Brian Glaves of Brompton, Scarborough. Other suppliers of East Yorkshire lamb are invited to email [email protected]/

CW 9/10/10