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demand for kid/goat in the uk


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I currently work for our familly wholesale butchery, Natural Farms. We farm source directly and locally from the best quality stock and supply clients including many of londons top butchers and some pretty nifty restaurant clients.

I'm really into the idea of sourcing the best quality goats in our area and having a go with them. The tribal elders think I'm insane, so I've a good mind to go it alone (having the advantage of being able to put it through our existing infrastructure)

Would anyone here take an interest in such a product? Would organic matter to you? What type of cuts would you require and what kind of cooking would you be interested in using it in?

Personally, I find the idea of the best quality english kid, locally (and organically?) sourced a really exciting idea but am I alone? Any feedback, comments or advice (such as seriously, dont bother!) greatly appreciated.

www.naturalfarms.co.uk ~ our wholesale butchery

www.sussexfarms.blogspot.com ~ our pie kitchen

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I understand that Nigel Haworth of Northcote Manor fame is intending to put goat on the menu at his new pub the Highwayman and at Northcote Manor in the near future, so you won't be entirely alone.

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I used to buy organic goat from our local organic shop, and very nice it was too. I'm a home cook, not running a restaurant. I'd buy horse if I could in the UK, mind - I'll eat anything good.

It may be an idea to market & package it with a leaflet of suitable recipes, and tips.

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Thank you both. Home mail-order is a distinct possibility, although would be likely tied to a whole/half carcase quantity as-per-usual with this type of offering. Low turnover makes full use of the carcase almost impossible if you offer prime-cuts. However, you can make good use of all of it with burger/kofte mince and i have in the past eaten amazing goat sausages!

I understand it is cropping up on one or two restaurant menus, i'd order it...

www.naturalfarms.co.uk ~ our wholesale butchery

www.sussexfarms.blogspot.com ~ our pie kitchen

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I understand it is cropping up on one or two restaurant menus, i'd order it...

Surely your biggest market is likely to remain the Caribbean community, where curried goat is of course a staple. There may not be be a huge home demand for grass fed, organic steaks and whathaveyou, but I'd have thought aspirational Caribbean restaurants might be interested. Try a promotion in the Voice newspaper?

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I was thinking along the same lines. It may be worth making direct contact with restaurants that specialise in regional food, which typically (in their home country) feature goat. Spanish restaurants, like Moro, also come to mind.

Working some seasonal aspect into it might be good - much like spring lamb - so it is launched first as a seasonal speciality, and building on the “terroir” aspect, how the grazing pastures reflect in the individuality of the taste, might be another angle.

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There was a specialist selling goat meat at the farmers' market in Queens Park, London NW6 a few days ago - and I think I've seen the same stallholder at Borough Market occasionally.

Maybe the Borough Market Trustees' office or Henrietta Green's office could put you in touch with them and you could ask them what sort of demand they find for it?

I've cooked kid from this supplier and it was ok but not thrilling - maybe it would have been more exciting chargrilled.

Wasn't there an American comedian who said "I love kids, but I couldn't eat a whole one"?

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Cothi Valley Goats sell very good kid meat at farmers markets around West Wales and by mail order, but i think they have had to expand into "ready meals" to make a go of it. (They do a great kid and mushroom pie , goat lasagne, moroccon stewed kid etc) .

You sometimes see kid at the farmers market in Islington too - i think its from a goat cheesemaker caled Medown Cedridge .

Gethin

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We took a goat off a local farmer who rears lambs for us. It was excellent and sold very quickly. We roasted part of it and braised the rest. Like wild boar, I was unsure how it would sell but people were really into it and not just for the novelty of having it.

Like all our meat not really bothered about whether it is organic or not as long as it is well reared, naturally fed and goes to a good abitoir then butcher. Though I would have thought there are only certain things goats eat!

I know that the Eagle in Farringdon have had it on their menu (and a dish of it is included in their cookbook) and I would imagine it is something the Anchor and Hope would like to try (as well as their new place in Covent Garden where former Eagle Head Chef and Telegraph food writer, Tom Norrington-Davies - can't remember the name......Great Queen Street? is cooking)

pb

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Thank you both.  Home mail-order is a distinct possibility, although would be likely tied to a whole/half carcase quantity as-per-usual with this type of offering.  Low turnover makes full use of the carcase almost impossible if you offer prime-cuts.  However, you can make good use of all of it with burger/kofte mince and i have in the past eaten amazing goat sausages!

I understand it is cropping up on one or two restaurant menus, i'd order it...

If you guys are fully geared-up butchers, surely you'd be better off doing a range of value-added products alongside the prime stuff and then marketing them all together.

If I had carte blanche I'd be making a range of goat based products and then setting up as 'The Goat Guy' at Borough. That way you sell your prime cuts but all the spare goes into things which continue to add to the message that 'Goat is Good'.

There's an Ostrich stall at Borough which has done this very well, you could even argue that this is how Farmer Sharpe had his incredible success with mutton.

In principle this is a great time to do it. I think people are ready to try something new - particularly things like mutton and goat which are 'naturally free range'. If anything the Carribean connection is a disadvantage in that it give people preconceptions about needing to be curried (or should that be 'curry') whereas the way it's used in Southern Spanish or Maghrebi cuisine - stunningly fashionable, dahling - is forgotten.

It's a great story. People just need to be told.

It's a fantastically exciting marketing brief. If you get it right the possibilities are huge - get it wrong and the Tribal elders will never stop laughing. :biggrin::biggrin:

Tim Hayward

"Anyone who wants to write about food would do well to stay away from

similes and metaphors, because if you're not careful, expressions like

'light as a feather' make their way into your sentences and then where are you?"

Nora Ephron

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I used to regularly buy goat from a farm shop near Frome in Somerset when I lived down there, it's the only place I've ever found it, and they used to sell what ever they could get. Now I'm in Cheshire, I've found numerous goats milk and goats cheese suppliers, but when I ask about buying a half or even whole one for the freezer, they look at me like I'm stupid.

What to cook with it? Well, curry goat is the obvious one (did a passable imitation with mutton the other night, but it's still not what it could be) I also slow roasted a leg (pretty fucking good actually) and made burgers, sausages etc with the trimmings. I usually came back to curry in the end though.

i don't think the organic tag is necessary, as Tim says, people assume goat, mutton etc to be free range, and to be honest, part of it's appeal is the price, 6 or 7 quid for a leg, that's what I'm talking about.

I hope you choose to do it, and if you do, let me know, I'll buy one :)

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Though I would have thought there are only certain things goats eat!

pb

Aren't they notorious for eating absolutely anything?

yes i think you are right...I meant more they wouldn't eat growth enhancing crap that some pigs and cattle are given....or maybe they would!

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Slightly on this topic my farmer meat supplier has offered me Ironage Pig today. This is a cross breed of wild boar and the domestic pig. It is from a farm near Sible Hedingham in Essex. The benefit is that the meat is slightly gamey but not as much as wild boar and leaner than say Gloucester Old Spot but not loosing that sort of flavor. They are slow growers, usually about a year old.

So I am going to take some in the next two weeks and see how it is. I believe this farmer currently sells them to Waitrose who use it for 'Wild Boar Sausages'.

Great name though.....an Ironage Pork Chop please!

pb

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Slightly on this topic my farmer meat supplier has offered me Ironage Pig today. This is a cross breed of wild boar and the domestic pig. It is from a farm near Sible Hedingham in Essex. The benefit is that the meat is slightly gamey but not as much as wild boar and leaner than say Gloucester Old Spot but not loosing that sort of flavor. They are slow growers, usually about a year old.

So I am going to take some in the next two weeks and see how it is. I believe this farmer currently sells them to Waitrose who use it for 'Wild Boar Sausages'.

Great name though.....an Ironage Pork Chop please!

pb

I have come across this. Not sure waitrose would bother with it for their sausages, as they could use a mix of pork/sow/wild boar which would be far more cost effective.

I'm actually really encouraged by the responses and i think its one of those grasp the nettle things, just go for it rather than wait for a response which will prob. be too late.

Regarding sourcing, your local milk producers should have male kids to cull otherwise half their goats would be billys which is a: none too productive (flashbacks of king-pin bull milking argh!) and b: a sure recipe for horned chaos.

www.naturalfarms.co.uk ~ our wholesale butchery

www.sussexfarms.blogspot.com ~ our pie kitchen

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Slightly on this topic my farmer meat supplier has offered me Ironage Pig today. This is a cross breed of wild boar and the domestic pig. pb

I thought that the "wild boar" sold in the UK was usually a wild / domestic pig cross.

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Slightly on this topic my farmer meat supplier has offered me Ironage Pig today. This is a cross breed of wild boar and the domestic pig. It is from a farm near Sible Hedingham in Essex. The benefit is that the meat is slightly gamey but not as much as wild boar and leaner than say Gloucester Old Spot but not loosing that sort of flavor. They are slow growers, usually about a year old.

So I am going to take some in the next two weeks and see how it is. I believe this farmer currently sells them to Waitrose who use it for 'Wild Boar Sausages'.

Great name though.....an Ironage Pork Chop please!

pb

I have come across this. Not sure waitrose would bother with it for their sausages, as they could use a mix of pork/sow/wild boar which would be far more cost effective.

I'm actually really encouraged by the responses and i think its one of those grasp the nettle things, just go for it rather than wait for a response which will prob. be too late.

Regarding sourcing, your local milk producers should have male kids to cull otherwise half their goats would be billys which is a: none too productive (flashbacks of king-pin bull milking argh!) and b: a sure recipe for horned chaos.

An unrelated question, on your last point:

I don't know anything about farming / raising animals in

industrialized countries. But, I thought most animals were

bred through artificial insemination (AI)?

If that's so, then why not only (or mostly) use X carrying sperm and breed

only (or mostly) females?

Is that not feasible?

My question also comes from the line of thought

that when raising dairy cattle for milk, the male calves

are "culled", killed, etc.

Is that also true? So, if only females were birthed,

then no need to kill these animals....

Thanks

Milagai

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I grow up on kid goat... it is a staple in Neapolitan cooking, the easter meat and many family also use it for Christmas lunch (we eat fish based meal on Xms Eve).

I would think Neapolitan restaurant may be interested if marketed in the right way for the right recipes.

In my opinion is far better then lamb.. For a period in my childhold we owned a farm and raised this breed: http://www.agraria.org/caprini/napoletana.htm

Ciao and good luck

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