Inside Primrose Pork – Winner of the Landmark Banger Award.

Posted 09.15.2009 in 2009 Archive, News & Info

I had the pleasure of a visiting Primrose Pork based in Great Bromley near Colchester, winner of the Eastern region Landmark Sausage award. I had the unique opportunity to be shown behind the scenes and I was shown first hand the facilities that Primrose Pork has.

I arrived early afternoon and was greeted by Robert Moss, the founder of Primrose Pork, after an initial introduction to his staff of 3 behind the counter I was teamed up with David, his 14 year old son who has worked on the family farm since a young age, often working much of his school holidays helping out.

Many butchers are proud to advertise locally sourced produce, but Robert has taken that one step further with his farm just a stone throw away from his farm shop. What makes Primrose stand out is that they are able to ensure the welfare and living standards of the pork that they sell in their shop. David told me how he remembered his dad always telling him from a young age to ‘treat animals as you would like to be treated yourself’.

Robert has taken that one step further with his farm just a stone throw away from his farm shop

Our tour started at the breading herd, where some of the boars weighted as much as 31/4 tons, it was wonderful to see the roaming space the animals had to live in, clearly primrose took interest in the livelihood of it’s animals on their farm, we then moved to a shelter where both the mother and her piglets lived, it was feeding time and they were clearly very hungry. Primrose likes to move their new born piglets onto solid food from an early age, and gradually increases it’s solid food intake over a period of time. No GM preservatives are used in any of their feed and this means that the pigs are given more time to grow naturally, which Robert tells me ‘ensures better taste and quality… at Primrose the emphasis is on quality rather than quantity, which is what our customers want‘.

Over the years Robert has perfected the pigs he breeds, with his breed being 50% Durock, 25% Land race and 25% Large white. The Durock provides a more succulent taste with it’s well balanced fat content within the lean primal. Durock is naturally ginger in colour so the Large white encourages the texture and colour we are familiar with. Robert explained to me cross breading produces pork of far better quality. In fact the cross breads that Robert uses is the same as that sold by the John Lewis group in it’s Waitrose stores, for whom Robert used provide pork for before turning his attention to selling directly via his on site farm shop.

Having visited their premises, I was immensely impressed with the procedures they have put in place, that ensure both the welfare of their animals as well as the quality of the products they sell in their shop. It is no wonder Robert was awarded the Landmark Banner Sausage award for the East of England in November of last year. ‘Only the best cuts of meat of used in our sausages’, Robert tells me, ‘and that is something we take very seriously it is important to me that we maintain constant quality so that customers can always know what to expect when the buy from us’. The award was presented by cricket legend Dickie Bird, asking Robert what what it was like to meet Dickie Bird he said ‘he was a very nice character, although I was surprised just how short he was. He was very much for British Farming’.

Robert has ambitious plans for developing his business and is currently in the process of setting up an area to produce his own cooked meats and pies form his own local produce. I am sure this will come as welcome addition to the range he already offers.