eat better meat™
Our Story
We have come a long way since our founding in 2011. From humble beginnings, within ten years we've transformed accessibility to better meat, and won Online Butcher of the Year for the third time.
Meat Aged Like Fine Wine
From the beginning of our story, we have approached red meat in the same way sommeliers taste wine. Attention to detail and knowledge of the terroir - the local natural environment where the meat is from - is key.
Different landscapes produce different qualities in the meat. We decided to base ourselves in Ripon, North Yorkshire, so we could be close to the farms and pastures of both the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors.
The upland pastures and wild grazing of these landscapes imbues the meat with quality.
farming the traditional way
We've built close relationships with our suppliers, cemented by years of cooperation. Our supply chain is built on trust and respect for the expertise of farmers, and we pay a fair price for their craft.
Our trusted suppliers do things the old-fashioned way. That means high welfare standards. Our meat is always British and free range, and the animals graze on pasture and natural feeds in the great outdoors. We do not use growth promoters, and do not support routine preventative use of antibiotics.
Heritage Breeds Make The Difference
Ten years ago, the list of vulnerable rare beef, sheep, and pork breeds was worryingly long. Since then, we have widened the home cook's access to heritage breed meat. Working with our farmers, we have encouraged them to breed and rear more of these wonderful creatures.
An important milestone in our history has been helping our farmers invest in the future of breeds. Stuart Raw, our Dexter farmer has doubled the size of his herd up in Wensleydale, and David Harrison our Galloway farmer has invested in a new bull, named Billy Bremner, to grow his herd.
In 2021, we went a step further, financing the foundation of two new herds of rare breed cattle at Castle Bolton in Wensleydale. We are helping secure the future of the White Park and Gloucester breeds for the years to come.
The Romance of Home Cooking
Farmison & Co has been built to serve the home cook. British food culture is enjoying a renaissance, and Farmison & Co is part of this as the nation engages with local produce.The joy of preparing, sharing, and enjoying food is a universal pleasure, the basis of human interactions.
We believe that home cooking food is key to a healthy, nourishing diet. Our quality produce is the basis for appreciating food, and we have worked with Michelin-starred chef Jeff Baker since our foundation to provide us with recipes and chef-prepared cuts.
Traditional High Quality Meat
With the home cook in mind, we immediately realised that the quality of meat is strongly linked to traditional farming practices, and the expertise and pride of the Master Butcher. We are used to hearing the refrain, "this is how meat used to taste," as we roll back the damage of industrialised practices in food.
From day one, traceability of produce for the home cook and the idea of having core values we weren't going to compromise on have been built into our supply chain. Industrial farms and supermarkets just can't cut the mustard when it comes to flavour.
traceability at the forefront of our work
We are proud to be industry leading in meat traceability, as well as food provenance. Ten years ago, you may recall the horse meat scandal which shocked supermarket customers when horse DNA was found in products labelled otherwise. This revelation highlighted precisely what we, Farmison & Co, were saying at the time, that the meat supply chain was opaque and unfit for purpose.
Since that day, we have continued to strive for excellence in providing high quality meat to UK households through our farming the future initiative. New for 2023, we have launched QR codes on each of our fresh products, to provide full traceability from farm to fork. These can easily be used via a smartphone to reveal more information about your products including the food miles, video footage of the farm, and information about the breed.
Classic Butchery Skills
We are safeguarding the future of butchery, taking on new apprentices and investing in our state of the art dry aging store. Our Master Butchers oversee the maturation process, and cut the hanging meat to order so your meat arrives in prime condition. They pass on the tricks of the trade to the younger generation of butchers coming through.
The expertise of our butchers is matched by Jeff Baker, our in house Michelin-starred chef. Jeff writes a recipe for every cut in our range, and collaborates with our butchers to produce new and exciting chef-prepared cuts.
Myths Around Fat
A big part of our story is encouraging home cooks to eat a balanced diet. There are a number of myths surrounding fat perpetuated by fad diet culture. We are fighting back. A growing body of evidence shows that animal fats are crucial for a healthy diet, and that the real causes of the obesity crisis lie elsewhere.
British heritage breeds typically boast more fat than other breeds. It builds up slowly as the herds and flocks graze natural pastures. This fat is the basis of our success. It brings the flavour. Our customers recognise this, enjoying and choosing meat with ample marbling.
Biggest Choice of Breeds
Our range of breeds means home cooks can discover and explore their own tastes. Farmison & Co's expanding network of farms is also contributing to customers' fascination as they engage with different terroirs.
Today we stock the largest variety of butchery, from the largest range of breeds, on the Internet. Building our own supply chain from the ground up has meant we can offer an unrivalled variety of British butchery.
Award Winning Online Butchers
Winning awards has been a true testament to the hard work and dedication that goes into providing the nation with better quality meat in the comfort of their homes. Since we began in 2011, we are proud to have won several awards including online butcher's shop of the year, three times, and innovation of the year award 2022 for our saucepan ready range. Including more recently, where we were finalists in the Eat Game Awards 2023 for best multiple retailer.
All of this is possible through our close relationship with our British farmers, who put time into slowly rearing their meat for the best quality possible.
Passion To Eat Better Meat
Taste is everything. Without it there would be no Farmison & Co. It is this passion for the joy of home cooking and where better meat comes from that sparked the idea that has grown into our award-winning butchery today.
we're committed to working towards a sustainable future
At Farmison & Co, we are passionate about generating a positive impact for both people and the planet by producing local, healthy and tasty products. We provide purpose into every part of our business, as our focus stands for environmental protection and stakeholder engagement. We do this through:
- sustainable farming - working with local farms and smallholdings in a range of schemes to improve the biodiversity and quality of the landscapes. This can include planting hedgerows, conservation grazing and encouraging the annual return of wildflowers.
- regenerative farming - the rotation of herds on pasture provides our farmers time to regenerate the topsoil to help promote fertile soil that leads to a healthy environment.
- carbon commitment - we are committed to reducing our carbon footprint, which is why we chose DPD to deliver our products. With no extra cost to you, all of DPD's deliveries are carbon neutral, which made them the obvious partner for us to choose.
- keeping it local - our operation may seem large, but in fact it is very local to our home in Ripon, North Yorkshire.
- food miles - our closest supplier is a mere 7 miles away, who is a family run farm spanning for generations. Keeping food miles to a minimum is especially important to us as it not only reduces our carbon footprint, but also reduces the stress on our animals.
Our Quality
ethical farming
Our Breeds
The British Isles has some of the finest beef, pork, and lamb breeds in the world, bred to perfection in the 18th and 19th centuries, to yield more marbling and fuller flavour.