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Every good product has to have a good story to tell
...and the Brown Cow story is no disappointment.
Our herd of Guernsey cows is more commonly known for the rich creamy milk that the cows produce. However in the late 1990s we just happened to have one of the pure bred Guernsey males ready to be sold for meat. We were offered a paltry sum for the animal so decided to have it killed and butchered for our own use instead. We gave some of the beef to friends and the overall response was that we had produced some very tasty beef indeed.
So at the Organic Food Awards 2001 we decided to enter a piece of our cross bred animals (i.e the mother was a Guernsey dairy cow and the father a beef bull) Against stiff and well established competition we won! One of the judges was David Lidgate of the very famous Lidgate Butcher’s in Holland Park London. David rang me up after he had judged the awards and established us as the winners, saying that he considered our beef some of the finest that he had ever tasted and to enquire as to its breeding. He was quite frankly astonished that something so good could be produced from a dairy breed. We started supplying his "high class" establishment and that relationship has continued until this day.
We also wanted to be able to supply our own market with this glorious beef and had to find a suitable name for our project. Whilst counting the brown cattle over the gate as they grazed the rich organic pastures in the glorious morning sunshine the name "Brown Cow Organics" originated. Little did we realise what a well known reputable brand it would become in such a short period of time. As the word spread re the quality of our beef so our business grew and we now sell all our beef produced on the farm directly to customers with the odd few going to Holland Park.
From the very first days we always knew that it would be essential for us to hang the carcass and butcher at our own site to maintain control on quality. We were most fortunate to be able to rent a butchery unit on one of our farms from the start, and in 2006 we converted our disused milking parlour into a butchery at Perridge. It was going to greatly improve logistics with having all staff on one site and consequently all products. This conversion looked so good that we decided this year to convert the opposite barn into a much larger premises for making our very famous yoghurt for River Cottage - fortunate really as production is increasing at an alarming rate!.
"Brown Cow Organics" now employs five people, four of whom are delighted with their new premises. The fifth, our secretary, is not so happy as two of us work in an office 8 feet x 8 feet, with two computers, telephones, various IT gadgetry and there is no room to swing a cat (so it tends to grab our chair very quickly, once vacated, instead).
We have had numerous appearances on the Radio, featured for a whole 11 minutes on BBC 1 with Rick Stein and we have met the very top celebrity chefs, Jamie Oliver & Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (and cooked THEM lunch!) Famous people say great things about our products but more importantly it is our customers that love our products and come back again and again.
The pleasure of our farming life lies in the determination to produce excellent food in a beautiful location, and to be happy!
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