Number One Pig

Your Very Own Pig

The Number One Pig Consortium has a simple aim - to rear the very best, rare breed, free-range pigs on behalf of its discerning customers and then let them have the pleasure of creating the best pork dishes they'll ever eat.

These days unfortunately you can't tell, unless you get specific assurances, as to the origin of the pork you buy.

So if you want to share the experience that hundreds of people have already enjoyed and know that your pork has been produced in the best possible circumstances, it's a very simple procedure. Email us via this link, or telephone 01944 759222 and we'll take you through the process. Basically, you choose a weaner (a young pig) and that will be yours until the day it's delivered to your home, ready for the table, or freezer, having been expertly butchered. The process from weaner to plate takes around four to five months, although pigs are available on a shorter timetable, or longer.

The amount of meat varies from 40kg to 55kg, so at a set price of £299 per pig, the per kilo price works out at between £7.48 and £5.43. The delivery charge is based on your postcode.

And for those that haven't got the room for a full pig, we also do halves at £175, matching them up with other customers wanting halves as well.

Rare Breeds

As to the pigs themselves, they are all rare breeds such as Saddlebacks, Gloucester Old Spots and Tamworths, and are mostly kept outdoors in small groups with their own shelter arks, at our farm, or farms chosen by us with the same high standards. True to the adage that you get out only what you put in, they are fed on a ration of mainly cereals with a low protein mix for slow-growth to produce a well-balanced blend of lean and fat pork. They are also treated to excess vegetables from the gardens and windfall apples in the autumn.

And remember, these are rare breed pigs, once the only ones available in this country, before the commercial ones were developed to create lean meat at all costs. And as we are all now becoming so aware, the biggest casualty of lean meat is flavour. Fat is where the flavour originates - you don't have to eat it of course, but fat creates a self-basting wrap, allowing the flavour to permeate the flesh as it cooks. Take the fat away and you might as well cook a piece of cardboard.

And why rare breeds? They grow slowly and they like being outdoors, producing pork that has a unique flavour.

'Commercial' pigs are standardised creatures; they are all weaned at an early stage, fattened quickly on bland, high protein diets which often include medicines - many growers taking the view that prevention at any cost is better than cure at any cost - and all kept at the same uniform temperature, in huge, computer-controlled sheds. Their short lives are basically without shape, or character, producing a meat that is equally without flavour, or character.