A Rare Breed: Step Inside our New Butchery
March 4th, 2024Our new Butchery is at the heart of the estate’s food story…
Step over the threshold of the new glass and oak-clad building at Avalon Farm to discover a rare breed of Butchery. Having outgrown the original Farm Shop space, we set about building a standalone Butchery, to allow full control over quality, provenance and traceability of all high welfare meat across the estate.
From estate venison that roams free in ancient woodland to British White beef and Dorset Down lamb, our passionate farmers grow the food for the animals on the estate and care for them their whole lives. Our expert butchers then honour each animal, ensuring every part can be used to produce the highest quality meat for our restaurant plates, Farm Shops and online.
“There is no better stage than the new Butchery and Roundhouse we have at Avalon Farm to help educate on sustainable agriculture and meat production,” explains Farm Manager, Cameron Knee. “Our Butchery team is incredibly passionate and skilled. By watching them at work, on the other side of the glass, you can see it is a real art. We’ve got nothing to hide here, so it’s nice to have that complete transparency.”
Head Butcher, Lloyd Tucker, presides over the vast new space. “We looked at a couple of other buildings on the farm, but in the end, it worked out best to start from scratch and build exactly what we wanted,” he says.
A viewing corridor through the building showcases every element of the traditional trade – whole hanging carcasses, butchers at work and the finest cuts ageing in the Himalayan Salt Room for supreme succulence and flavour – for a transparent 360° experience never usually seen.
A Space to Learn & Grow
Members and guests are invited to join our butchers as they impart their knowledge and experience on regular Farm-to-Knife Butchery workshops. “Guests can see the team working away and learn about the basics of butchery with a rotation of four workshops,” explains Lloyd. “For March and April, the focus is lamb: guests will identify different cuts of the animal, sharpen knife skills, break down a carcass for cuts to take home before a wood-fired lunch in the Garden Café or, in good weather, the Butchery’s own outdoor fire pit.”
This knowledge sharing and education will be a key facet of the Butchery, and we look forward to forging relationships with chefs, hoteliers, food producers and butchers as we strive to become a hub for training and development here in the South West.
As well as teaching, The Newt Butchery allows us room to grow. “The Butchery gives us the chance to really push the boundaries on our product range,” explains Lloyd. “We’ve got the building, the equipment and the experienced team, which gives us huge scope to make new products, including nitrate-free bacon, charcuterie and a ready-to-eat ‘Hadspen Cold Larder’ range inspired by the estate’s heritage.” We’re drawing on our archive to recreate traditional recipes from times past with a range of hams, roast beef, salt beef and terrines, celebrating our rich heritage while championing less popular cuts which can’t be used elsewhere.
The partly solar powered new space sees the introduction of curing, smoking, cooking, rendering and stock making to use every last bit of the animal. “Most butchers can’t balance the whole carcass like we can,” says Lloyd. “We use the ‘fifth quarter’ to make stocks, broths, sauces and charcuterie from the off cuts.” Using estate-reared produce, coupled with learnings from our South African sister estate, we’re introducing British White Biltong as one of our first new products – available in the Farm Shop later this week!
Our ambitious Butchery plans involve much learning: we’ve got an incredible opportunity to drive forwards and futureproof our sustainable farm-to-table approach, and hopefully inspire others to reinvigorate this forgotten art along the way.
9 March, 11 April
Farm-to-Knife Butchery – Lamb
Be one of the first to see inside our new Butchery and learn the basics with our experts before an indulgent carnivorous lunch. You’ll take home all your butchered cuts, including breast of lamb, 500g minced lamb, shoulder of lamb and a rack of lamb.
