Eating 'responsibly-sourced' meat - Who does it? How?

[C70R]

MrsC raised a salient point on a long drive over the weekend - we're both big animal lovers, and shouldn't with all good conscience enjoy eating intensively-farmed meat. However, we're also practical and busy people (I work long hours, MrsC travels a lot), meaning that the majority of our shopping is done at the supermarket - we have an amazing local butcher, who opens 9-4 Mon-Fri and 8-12 Sat, which isn't much help.
Being candid, supermarket meat is largely rubbish, and the only "free range" option is generally 'taste the difference' chicken breast. And even if this were the world's best chicken, there's only so much chicken breast one can eat.

We're moving to London/Kent borders temporarily, and have resolved to get better at eating responsibly-sourced meat. We've found a well-reviewed butcher locally, but timings are still likely to be an issue.
To those who do it, do you have any tips?

[olimain]

I buy from here, all farms Red Tractor approved and full traceability promised. The meat we've had has been fantastic

http://greatbritishmeat.com/

[sidekickdmr]

Online butcher, delivered to your home, pop some in the freezer, job jobbed!

Or speak to your local butcher, ours does deliveries and I'm sure you could pay by phone and have it left on your doorstep once a week?

[Turn7]

I travel 25 miles for my Butcher.

We buy a fair bit each visit and fill the freezer up.

They are a member of the Guild of Master Butcher and it is all top quality.

Tescburyrose sell a vile abomination of meat in my eyes, and we have never bought our meat from them.

http://www.newitt.co.uk/

[fat80b]

C70R said:

who opens 9-4 Mon-Fri and 8-12 Sat

Same for us - 6you don't have to go every week - we go to the Butcher approx once every 6 weeks on a Sat morning and fill the freezer. Can't you do this?

Bob

[silentbrown]

You're probably already doing this, but simply eating meat less often is another approach. A couple more meat=free meals every week means you can hit the organic/locally sourced steaks with a clearer conscience.

Also, do you have a freezer. Needs a bit more planning to get stuff out to defrost, but allows you to stock up on the good stuff when you find it.

Surprised nobody's mentioned roadkill yet

[bigandclever]

olimain said:

I buy from here, all farms Red Tractor approved and full traceability promised

I might be wrong, but I'm sure Red Tractor just means 'British farm where at least the minimum legal welfare requirements are met but not much more' ie not great. I might have to have a google.

[anonymous-user]

Yes red tractor is 50000 shed chickens.

Chickens are hard to get free range for anything less than 15 quid, lamb is pretty free range and beef is easy to find.

[silentbrown]

bigandclever said:

Red Tractor just means 'British farm where at least the minimum legal welfare requirements are met but not much more' ie not great.

Indeed. http://www.ciwf.org.uk/your-food/know-your-labels/

[Brads67]

I eat responsibly sourced meat.

I take my rifle / lurchers out and track it , kill it, butcher it, and cook it myself.

Job done.

[Turn7]

Brads67 said:

I eat responsibly sourced meat.

I take my rifle / lurchers out and track it , kill it, butcher it, and cook it myself.

Job done.

Good for you.

Seriously.

However, not quite that easy in Croydon......

[omniflow]

Have you tried Waitrose?

They have a far wider choice of free range chicken than Tesco, Sainsbury and M&S.

[C70R]

An overwhelming response - thank you all! I'll try and address the points in order, if that makes sense.

sidekick/olimain - Do you have any details of reliable online butchers? It's something we'd considered, but would prefer a recommendation.

silent/fatbob - The freezer is always an option, and something we'd considered. While it's probably OK for things like mince, I can't help but feel it doesn't do any justice to nice joints or steaks. I'd ideally prefer a weekly delivery, to be honest.

Brad/Turn - A nice idea (I grew up in the countryside), but not practical in London unless you like fox casserole. Thankfully, I'm a long old way from Croydonia.

omniflow - Waitrose is somewhat better than the crowd, but even there I found it difficult to find what I was after. Their 'premium' meats seem to be either "Organic" (no info about welfare) or "21 days aged".

Edited by C70R on Thursday 20th October 10:07

[Cotty]

C70R said:

sidekick/olimain - Do you have any details of reliable online butchers? It's something we'd considered, but would prefer a recommendation.

There was a thread on this recently. Lots of suggestions and recommendations
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[olimain]

C70R said:

An overwhelming response - thank you all! I'll try and address the points in order, if that makes sense.

sidekick/olimain - Do you have any details of reliable online butchers? It's something we'd considered, but would prefer a recommendation.

silent/fatbob - The freezer is always an option, and something we'd considered. While it's probably OK for things like mince, I can't help but feel it doesn't do any justice to nice joints or steaks. I'd ideally prefer a weekly delivery, to be honest.

Brad/Turn - A nice idea (I grew up in the countryside), but not practical in London unless you like fox casserole. Thankfully, I'm a long old way from Croydonia.

omniflow - Waitrose is somewhat better than the crowd, but even there I found it difficult to find what I was after. Their 'premium' meats seem to be either "Organic" (no info about welfare) or "21 days aged".

Edited by C70R on Thursday 20th October 10:07

I used to use Westin Gourmet and Musclefood (same company I think), wouldn't again, Great British Meat is far better in my opinion, though I mainly use them for cow related meat.

[21TonyK]

More about being organic etc but these guys are pretty good.

http://www.wellhungmeat.com/

[Cotty]

21TonyK said:

More about being organic etc but these guys are pretty good.

http://www.wellhungmeat.com/

No double entendre there, no siree

[C70R]

Thank you so much to those who provided links. We'll test drive one of the online butchers with a weekly delivery, and share our thoughts back here.

[Craikeybaby]

We have been trying to eat better meat, but less of it this year.

We have mainly been buying meat from local butchers or butchers at local farm shops, often using it as excuse to go out for a breakfast hoon, as the farm shops we use tend to have good cafes.

[omniflow]

Not really sure why you need a weekly delivery of meat.

I am definitely a meat eater - roast beef is my absolute favorite meal - but I only buy steak or roasting beef about once every 2 or 3 weeks. A large free range chicken from Waitrose will do 3 meals for 2 people, with many many options for what to make from the leftovers. Pasta with a tomato based sauce covers another meal, then some batch cooking from the freezer covers 2 more meals. Then skinless & boneless free range chicken thighs (again, from Waitrose) can be used to make loads of different dishes - my current favorite is a Thai style stir-fry - 1 pack of chicken thighs makes dinner for 2 for 2 nights.

The only meats I buy from the supermarket are Chicken, Bacon and Sausages. Everything else I will pick up from the butcher on my way home on a Friday evening. I work in London, and the Ginger Pig is open until 6:30 PM on Fridays. As previously stated, I don't do this every week, but when I do, I put the effort in to make sure I'm buying a top quality piece of meat that is going to be appreciated by everyone that eats it.