30/08/2026
⚠️ Before you read: This post talks openly about farming animals for food, including carcass grading. If that’s not something you’re comfortable with, please scroll past — no offence taken! ❤️
🐂 Three years, plenty of experimenting, and we think we’ve cracked it.
We’re really proud to have received our first Highland carcass graded R4L.
It might just look like a set of letters and a number, but there’s actually a lot behind that grade.
Highland cattle are a traditional native breed, and they mature much more slowly than many modern beef breeds. We take ours right up to their 30 months — giving them the time they need to grow and finish properly.
But getting the best from them isn’t simply a case of leaving them to it.
Over the last 6 years, we’ve tried different approaches to find what produces the best combination of animal welfare, natural growth, finishing and eating quality.
🌱 100% grass
❄️ Wintering outdoors
🏠 Wintering indoors
🌾 Feeding outdoors
…and plenty of combinations in between.
It’s been a bit of a learning curve, but this year we think we’ve found the sweet spot.
This bullock killed out at 55%, which is a really good result for a native breed, and achieving an R4L carcass is something we’re genuinely delighted with.
And there’s still a fair bit to do before it reaches your plate.
The beef will be going into the butcher over the next couple of weeks, with the prime cuts hanging for 28 days to develop flavour and tenderness.
This is the bit of farming that we really want people to understand.
Good beef doesn’t just appear in a plastic tray.
It takes years of growth, daily care, good stockmanship, careful feeding, observation, trial and error — and a lot of patience.
And when we’re producing food that we’re then going to put on the shelves of our own shop, we really do care about getting it right.
🥩 Grown here. Produced here. Sold here.
That’s what Field to Fork means to us.
Now… there is one small problem.
We need to make room in the freezer for all this lovely new beef! 😂
🐑🐂 BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY
30% OFF ALL LAMB & BEEF IN OUR SHOP FREEZER
So if you’re planning to fill the freezer, Monday is the day!
