Welsh beef status celebrated on farm
Meat from a farm near Oswestry is at the centre of a major bid to promote Welsh beef .
Brongain Farm in Llanfechain is owned by the Pickstock Farming, which has just achieved Welsh beef protected European status.
It has teamed up with distribution company Harlech Foodservice to champion Welsh beef with the launch of a new range of products under the Brongain Farm brand.
The 680-acre Brongain Farm, in Llanfechain in Powys, is now hoping to increase the size of their Aberdeen Angus herd from 800 to 1,000 cattle.
As demand grows, Brongain Farm will be buying livestock from other approved farms who meet their high environmental, sustainability and welfare standards.
Gareth Evans, National Account Manager of the beef processing parent company, Pickstock Telford, said: “Pickstock and Harlech Foodservice are leading the way to help support the Welsh beef industry.
“Brongain Farm will be the flagship brand with Harlech Foodservice going forward.
“We have an integrated supply chain, controlled all the way from the farm to when it arrives with the customer, essentially all the way from field to fork.
Provenance
"Our procurement team are on farms daily, interacting with farmers to improve the quality of the meat coming through and ensuring they meet our environmental, sustainability and welfare standards.”
Farm Manager Rowan Pickstock added: “The provenance and traceability of our brilliant Welsh beef is absolutely key in coming together to promote it. We’re also providing a boost for the rural economy through the partners who supply us.
“When people enjoy the beef in a pub or a hotel or wherever, they can be safe in the knowledge that it is been bred and reared locally down the road and people buy into that. It’s becoming increasingly important for people to know where their food comes from, to have that confidence that it has been sourced locally.
“People want to know it’s not travelled hundreds or thousands of miles from Europe or South America. From the sustainability point of view, this is the best option out there for consumers."
It was a sentiment endorsed by Laura Foskett, the Marketing Director at Harlech Foodservice, who said the company was passionate about promoting Welsh products.
The company, founded in Harlech in 1972 when her parents took over a small frozen food shop, is going from strength to strength and opened the Chester depot in 2014 to expand its operation in the North West of England.
Between the two locations, the company employs around 200 staff and they have more than 10,000 product lines which they supply to cafés, restaurants, pubs and public sector customers, including schools, across North and Mid-Wales, Shropshire, the Midlands and the North West.
