Why not take this unique opportunity to buy your very own "Lazylonghorn"
Buying beef in bulk can be an excellent deal, but not for everyone. Buying a side or a quarter of beef is a good choice, only if you want to save money, like to cook, have adequate cold storage space and quality of taste and texture is more important than the bright red colour and tasteless experience from typical supermarket meat.
The advantages of buying meat in bulk directly from t he Lazylonghorn include:
Superior quality meat - High Street meat is aged typically for 5 - 7 days. Meat purchased from Lazylonghorn, in the case of Longhorn beef is aged in the cold store 21 days between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees 'C' thermostatically to improve the flavour and texture of your meat.
Traceability of the product - High Street diced and minced meat is often produced using the meat from dozens of animals from different sources. When you buy direct from the Lazylonghorn because of the smaller scale in the butchery operation, diced meat for stews and minced meat is produced and traceable to one single animal.
Lower food miles - In these days of Environmental Awareness rest assured "Lazylonghorn" steers, lambs and pigs suffer no stress on their 20 minute ride to the abbatoir, they are then collected in our latest spec thermostatically controlled cold store trailer and matured and butchered on the farm, accumulating only 30 food miles prior to being collected or delivered free of charge to your door in the same thermostatically controlled refrigerated trailer. Lazylonghorn don't risk sending meat in insulated boxes by conventional couriers, we want our meat to reach you in perfect condition and to be truly local.
Consistency in price - Because you are buying your meat at a price set on the day you start purchasing your animal, you could effectively buy your meat free from 2 years of world market price increases reflecting their increasing demand for food. You will no doubt be aware from the media that British farmers are under pressure to produce more food because of the worlds increasing population and the demand on resources plus compensating for the land throughout the world being set aside to grow grain for bio-fuels.
The meat is packed ready for freezing - All Lazylonghorn meat is vacuum packed the moment our butchers knife passes through the meat, it is then weighed and labelled with all the information including the date required for effective freezing and placed back in the cold store trailer ready for delivery.
Value for money - Most farms allow customers to purchase meat in a variety of ways. You can buy an animal whole, in half or a quarter in the case of beef or you can simply purchase wholesale cuts or joints. Lazylonghorn offer an innovative alternative where you can start buying the animal at birth, fix the wholesale butchered price of your animal on that day, at the current price on that day and avoid any increases that will arise over the 30 month life of the Longhorn steer. It is quite common for groups families or syndicates to pool resources to purchase a single animal.
Track the "Lazy" and "Happy" life of your animal, you will be welcome to make an appointment to visit the farm and spend time with your animal, meet the team who look after it and discuss it's health and any treatments it may have had. During the winter the animals are housed when the ground gets wet and can no longer stand their traffic, during this period you can spot your animal on the webcam in the cattle shed, watch it feeding, lay down chewing it's cud, even getting a scratch from us or the cow brushes. Longhorns are a hardy animal and very rarely need the vets attention or die prematurely due to illness or disease but in that unlikely event we guarantee to return every penny you have paid if you don't wish to buy an alternative animal at a pro rata £/kg matching the rate you signed up at. In all likeliness that will be a younger animal and we will refund the difference immediately, in the event that there is availability of an older animal there will be a balance to pay on delivery because the animal will have matured sooner than your payment plan will have matured, you may alternatively wish to increase your weekly/monthly payments over the expected life of your new animal.
Choose from the following Longhorn Steers:
The following butchery report details the meat produced from a single animal, this animal was used by our own retail sales and reflects the products that are most popular with our customers allowing us to fully utilise the whole animal, your requirements might be totally different but rest assured we will be happy to sit down and discuss your requirements when you begin purchasing the animal. We are fully aware that these may change, you may choose to add members to your syndicate or family purchase at any time and we will be pleased to alter your requirements.
The target live weight for our cattle at slaughter is 500kg, however on grass feed alone this is not always possible. You know yourself as with human athletes, a body will only grow to a certain size due to genetics without artificial supplement and although the genetics of our herd are from prize winning bloodstock, mainly the Blackbrook and Dunstall Herds, some don't quite make it on grass alone. We accept this and would much rather refund the difference than sacrifice the quality of the eating experience.
To work out exactly how much it will cost you to purchase a Lazylonghorn, simply choose an animal from the list of steers. Your choice might be based on the maturity date of the animal and the period over which the payment will be spread. Then copy and past this link in the address bar of your internet browser http://www.fwi.co.uk/Prices/Prices.aspx?sPage=dwtcattle and follow the link to the Farmers Weekly website which publishes the latest weekly average Dead Weight prices for Steers in the UK. Unfortunately they don't have a category for grass fed animals because the industry rewards growth and not eating quality so we use the R4L catagory as a base cost, multiply that by the target dead weight of your animal which roughly equates to 56% of the target 500kg = 280kg then add £200.00 for the slaughter, butchery and packing cost which is minimal and very reasonable because it takes Bev, myself and the butcher a full day to process the animal and clean down the butchery.
At the time of writing [15th November 2009], if you chose Steer 21 which will reach it's 30 months maturity in September 2011 [22 Months]. The current R4L price is 284.8 pence per kg so quite simply 280kg [Dead Weight] multiplied by £2.85 = £798.00 add £200.00 butchery cost then divide by the remaining 22 Months = £45.36 per month to pay. This figure per month could be adjusted by a deposit or final balance to pay to suit yourself, if it were more convenient.
As with all commodities on open markets, they do fluctuate throughout the year with demand, they also, best illustrated in the following price trend graph which is also taken from the Farmers Weekly website, fluctuate taking account of the world populations increase and it's respective effect on demand and prices. British farmers are coming under pressure to produce more to meet this increasing demand. I'm a farmer, not an expert on reading the markets but it does strike me that apart from the traditional dip in demand at the height of summer, beef values have exceeded those of 2007-8 and it's strikes me that locking into a fixed market value between now and just after the Christmas festive season would be the most advantageous time to purchase a Lazylonghorn.
