Discussion
blueg33 said:
Must ask my regular London hotel where they get their eggs from. The yolk is always a deep orange alnmost red sometimes, and they are pretty tasty.
The palest is like this
Isn’t yolk colour just a by product of what the chickens happen to be eating, with no bearing on taste or quality?The palest is like this
wolfracesonic said:
blueg33 said:
Must ask my regular London hotel where they get their eggs from. The yolk is always a deep orange alnmost red sometimes, and they are pretty tasty.
The palest is like this
Isn’t yolk colour just a by product of what the chickens happen to be eating, with no bearing on taste or quality?The palest is like this
F*** me that was expensive. Farm shop visit done.. £100 lighter! Eggs were £1.60 of that. Unstamped so no idea what they are and just a big basket of them! Full report tomorrow 
I also now have a kitchen full of jam, honey, cake, pork pies, some local gin of some description, various types of sausages and about a months worth of bacon, you can never have enough bacon.
I also now have a kitchen full of jam, honey, cake, pork pies, some local gin of some description, various types of sausages and about a months worth of bacon, you can never have enough bacon.
21TonyK said:
I went to a local food market a couple of months back. Nearly had to break out a credit card.
The one near me charges £35 for a leg of lamb and £3.75 for a pot of mint sauce to go with it,No wonder they are always trying to get you to shop local and support your local butcher.
If supermarket shopping is your only route then try these https://steweeggs.com
Most of the time golden and full of flavour, but I prefer buying direct off the local farmers when time permits.
A real fresh egg seems to have a very limited lifespan.
Most of the time golden and full of flavour, but I prefer buying direct off the local farmers when time permits.
A real fresh egg seems to have a very limited lifespan.
Sheets Tabuer said:
21TonyK said:
I went to a local food market a couple of months back. Nearly had to break out a credit card.
The one near me charges £35 for a leg of lamb and £3.75 for a pot of mint sauce to go with it,No wonder they are always trying to get you to shop local and support your local butcher.
Turn7 said:
......Supermarkets.....
Thats your problem right there..
Find a farm or local that sells them, waay better as not commercially produced.
Thats your problem right there..
Find a farm or local that sells them, waay better as not commercially produced.
Mort7 said:
The meat prices at our local farm shop, which is associated with a farm, are cheaper than Waitrose, and the meat is of far better quality and of known provenance. You need to shop around.
Things like this make me laugh, where do you think the supermarket gets their produce from? And why do you think a local farm shop sources them from any different place, or has them reared in any different way? Almost all meat, whether it goes into McDonalds burgers, or your high end farm shop sirloin steak is bred from pretty much the same animals, living off pretty much the same food, and reared in pretty much the same way. There are differences, obviously, between a Highland cow reared in north Scotland which eats grass all day, and a Charolais which was bought up on an intensive farm in Suffolk, but to think that all the farm shops are buying from the Highland cow farm, and the supermarkets are buying from the large commercial farm is simply not true. Most of it ends up in a market somewhere, or goes straight to a slaughterhouse, and becomes 'beef'. The differences in breed are largely down to a farmers personal preference, rather than differences in taste. No customer can taste the difference between 2 breeds, no matter how much they might like buying Aberdeen Angus over a Belgium Blue.
A place I used to work at built their own farm shop, with the idea of giving that provenance and traceability that people want. In reality though, their own beef was s
t, and they ended up buying the carcasses from a wholesaler, but customers liked the fact they could see cows from the farm shop, and so assumed it was those cows they were eating! Just to be clear - a farm shop will be sourcing its meat and eggs from a commercial enterprise. If you honestly think there is enough money in farming to have a 'hobby farm' which has chickens scratching around outside and a few cattle being reared slowly for the on-farm shop you're a marketeers dream! Even if their meat is sourced on farm, it will still be done efficiently, and the farm shop will likely only take a small handful of the animals, with the rest ending up on a supermarket shelf and in a McDonalds burger.
Edited by Condi on Sunday 22 December 18:42
And that proves that there are "Farm shops" and real, Farmer owned, farmer reared farm shops....
See also "Tesco Finest"......
Big Farm shops are exactly TF grade, Im talking about a farm that exists to raise produce it sells directly to the public via its own shop......
If I want free range eggs, I expect to run a few Chucks over each time I buy eggs as they are running around the yard.......
See also "Tesco Finest"......
Big Farm shops are exactly TF grade, Im talking about a farm that exists to raise produce it sells directly to the public via its own shop......
If I want free range eggs, I expect to run a few Chucks over each time I buy eggs as they are running around the yard.......
Condi said:
Turn7 said:
......Supermarkets.....
Thats your problem right there..
Find a farm or local that sells them, waay better as not commercially produced.
Thats your problem right there..
Find a farm or local that sells them, waay better as not commercially produced.
Mort7 said:
The meat prices at our local farm shop, which is associated with a farm, are cheaper than Waitrose, and the meat is of far better quality and of known provenance. You need to shop around.
Things like this make me laugh, where do you think the supermarket gets their produce from? And why do you think a local farm shop sources them from any different place, or has them reared in any different way? Almost all meat, whether it goes into McDonalds burgers, or your high end farm shop sirloin steak is bred from pretty much the same animals, living off pretty much the same food, and reared in pretty much the same way. There are differences, obviously, between a Highland cow reared in north Scotland which eats grass all day, and a Charolais which was bought up on an intensive farm in Suffolk, but to think that all the farm shops are buying from the Highland cow farm, and the supermarkets are buying from the large commercial farm is simply not true. Most of it ends up in a market somewhere, or goes straight to a slaughterhouse, and becomes 'beef'. The differences in breed are largely down to a farmers personal preference, rather than differences in taste. No customer can taste the difference between 2 breeds, no matter how much they might like buying Aberdeen Angus over a Belgium Blue.
A place I used to work at built their own farm shop, with the idea of giving that provenance and traceability that people want. In reality though, their own beef was s
t, and they ended up buying the carcasses from a wholesaler, but customers liked the fact they could see cows from the farm shop, and so assumed it was those cows they were eating! Just to be clear - a farm shop will be sourcing its meat and eggs from a commercial enterprise. If you honestly think there is enough money in farming to have a 'hobby farm' which has chickens scratching around outside and a few cattle being reared slowly for the on-farm shop you're a marketeers dream! Even if their meat is sourced on farm, it will still be done efficiently, and the farm shop will likely only take a small handful of the animals, with the rest ending up on a supermarket shelf and in a McDonalds burger.
Edited by Condi on Sunday 22 December 18:42
The farm shop that I am referring to rears it’s animals on the farm next to the shop. They're quite happy to show you around, and when I say that the provenance is known, I mean that each animal is known individually. Animal welfare standards are high, and the farming method is traditional, not factory farming. Your experiences have clearly left you a little cynical, but there are good farms, and good farm shops, out there if you know where to look.Oh, and they actually do have chickens scratching around, which sometimes wander into the car park.
Egg report incoming!
So they were pretty decent (was hoping to say eggcellent…. but alas not quite that good) , not the best I have ever had but defiantly better than what the supermarkets have been dishing out the last year or so. I am still convinced something has changed meaning the birds are being fed something different.
I eat probably at least 6 eggs a week, if not more than that so I have noticed a change, very little taste and very runny white with pale yolk.
These had a good taste and the white was firm and I will try poaching some when I next get some more as that's usually a good test.
I also have some M&S white shelled eggs to try just for comparison.
The farm shop I went too was clearly selling bought in produce (cheese, meat etc) but I got the feeling the veg and the eggs were very local. The veg was covered in soil and not trimmed and eggs were "pick and mix" out of a giant basket.
So they were pretty decent (was hoping to say eggcellent…. but alas not quite that good) , not the best I have ever had but defiantly better than what the supermarkets have been dishing out the last year or so. I am still convinced something has changed meaning the birds are being fed something different.
I eat probably at least 6 eggs a week, if not more than that so I have noticed a change, very little taste and very runny white with pale yolk.
These had a good taste and the white was firm and I will try poaching some when I next get some more as that's usually a good test.
I also have some M&S white shelled eggs to try just for comparison.
The farm shop I went too was clearly selling bought in produce (cheese, meat etc) but I got the feeling the veg and the eggs were very local. The veg was covered in soil and not trimmed and eggs were "pick and mix" out of a giant basket.
Mort7 said:
The farm shop that I am referring to rears it’s animals on the farm next to the shop. They're quite happy to show you around, and when I say that the provenance is known, I mean that each animal is known individually. Animal welfare standards are high, and the farming method is traditional, not factory farming. Your experiences have clearly left you a little cynical, but there are good farms, and good farm shops, out there if you know where to look.Oh, and they actually do have chickens scratching around, which sometimes wander into the car park.
Animal welfare standards are high on 99.9% of farms - the animals are, after all, what the farmer gets paid on. Poor quality, no meat, or dead don't earn you much cash when they get sent for slaughter. It is nobodies interest to treat animals poorly.
In the UK we don't rear beef in 'factories', mainly because it is cheaper to let them eat grass which grows well here. Chickens are factory reared, because doing anything different is uneconomic, although standards are much better than they were 20 years ago. Compare free range sales with the cheaper products and it is easy to see what the customer cares about.
You could buy the cheapest bit of meat from the supermarket, cook it well, and it would taste at least as good as your expensive hand reared farm shop product.
I would also have a good punt that the animal which serves up top sirloin steak in a good resturant also serves up McDonald's burgers - they just use different cuts of the same animal. McDonald's buys from the majority of beef farms in the UK and is their single biggest consumer.
You do wonder if you blind folded a food ponce and got them to eat the two eggs in question they would tell the difference and that goes for roast chicken too.
Our local 'Farm shop' is indeed run by one of the conmen outlined in the above posts, I tried it for the first time ever recently. They had duck in a freezer and the sign above proclaimed it to be British organic. I pulled some out and it had a 'Produce of Czech republic' label on it that someone had forgotten to peel off.
Our local 'Farm shop' is indeed run by one of the conmen outlined in the above posts, I tried it for the first time ever recently. They had duck in a freezer and the sign above proclaimed it to be British organic. I pulled some out and it had a 'Produce of Czech republic' label on it that someone had forgotten to peel off.
Condi said:
Turn7 said:
......Supermarkets.....
Thats your problem right there..
Find a farm or local that sells them, waay better as not commercially produced.
Thats your problem right there..
Find a farm or local that sells them, waay better as not commercially produced.
Mort7 said:
The meat prices at our local farm shop, which is associated with a farm, are cheaper than Waitrose, and the meat is of far better quality and of known provenance. You need to shop around.
Things like this make me laugh, where do you think the supermarket gets their produce from? And why do you think a local farm shop sources them from any different place, or has them reared in any different way? Almost all meat, whether it goes into McDonalds burgers, or your high end farm shop sirloin steak is bred from pretty much the same animals, living off pretty much the same food, and reared in pretty much the same way. There are differences, obviously, between a Highland cow reared in north Scotland which eats grass all day, and a Charolais which was bought up on an intensive farm in Suffolk, but to think that all the farm shops are buying from the Highland cow farm, and the supermarkets are buying from the large commercial farm is simply not true. Most of it ends up in a market somewhere, or goes straight to a slaughterhouse, and becomes 'beef'. The differences in breed are largely down to a farmers personal preference, rather than differences in taste. No customer can taste the difference between 2 breeds, no matter how much they might like buying Aberdeen Angus over a Belgium Blue.
A place I used to work at built their own farm shop, with the idea of giving that provenance and traceability that people want. In reality though, their own beef was s
t, and they ended up buying the carcasses from a wholesaler, but customers liked the fact they could see cows from the farm shop, and so assumed it was those cows they were eating! Just to be clear - a farm shop will be sourcing its meat and eggs from a commercial enterprise. If you honestly think there is enough money in farming to have a 'hobby farm' which has chickens scratching around outside and a few cattle being reared slowly for the on-farm shop you're a marketeers dream! Even if their meat is sourced on farm, it will still be done efficiently, and the farm shop will likely only take a small handful of the animals, with the rest ending up on a supermarket shelf and in a McDonalds burger.
Edited by Condi on Sunday 22 December 18:42
In many drugs trials placebos are more effective than the actual drug!
We buy our nice meat from the outlet next to the abattoir. The meat literally travels metres from carcass to cash till, and <20miles from field to abattoir.
"Farm Shops" are often just for the tourists, and their £££.
Work out what you are buying and where it has come from. I must admit it's much easier in Cumbria.
"Farm Shops" are often just for the tourists, and their £££.
Work out what you are buying and where it has come from. I must admit it's much easier in Cumbria.
Condi said:
Mort7 said:
The farm shop that I am referring to rears it’s animals on the farm next to the shop. They're quite happy to show you around, and when I say that the provenance is known, I mean that each animal is known individually. Animal welfare standards are high, and the farming method is traditional, not factory farming. Your experiences have clearly left you a little cynical, but there are good farms, and good farm shops, out there if you know where to look.Oh, and they actually do have chickens scratching around, which sometimes wander into the car park.
Animal welfare standards are high on 99.9% of farms - the animals are, after all, what the farmer gets paid on. Poor quality, no meat, or dead don't earn you much cash when they get sent for slaughter. It is nobodies interest to treat animals poorly.
In the UK we don't rear beef in 'factories', mainly because it is cheaper to let them eat grass which grows well here. Chickens are factory reared, because doing anything different is uneconomic, although standards are much better than they were 20 years ago. Compare free range sales with the cheaper products and it is easy to see what the customer cares about.
You could buy the cheapest bit of meat from the supermarket, cook it well, and it would taste at least as good as your expensive hand reared farm shop product.
I would also have a good punt that the animal which serves up top sirloin steak in a good resturant also serves up McDonald's burgers - they just use different cuts of the same animal. McDonald's buys from the majority of beef farms in the UK and is their single biggest consumer.
The farm shop that I use is next to the farm, and they sell their product through the shop. They also supply local restaurants. I'm happy that my perception of their produce is accurate, I'm extremely happy with the meat that they sell and the service that they provide, and I'll be continuing to buy from them.
They have three very experienced butchers on-site, and they prepare everything in full view. It's not pre-packaged. I consider them to be an excellent butchers that I am very happy to do business with. If you choose to doubt my opinion that's your prerogative, of course.
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