I already knew about the fineness of the fleeces of the Native Shetland Sheep when I moved to Shetland in1990. What I had not expected was how good their meat tasted. For a number of years I had been grazing my flock of Buelah Speckled Faced Sheep on the herb rich nature reserves of Gloucestershire and I thought the meat tasted as good as any produced in the UK.
It took a year or two to be certain but eventually I came to understand that the extra sweetness, tenderness and succulence of the meat I found in my Native Shetland Lamb was consistent year after year. It also explains why my lambs were being exported to Northern Italy. They have a food culture that values quality and provenance above standardised shapes at a low price.
Back in 2005, when I looked at the numbers, I found that I was working for all the middle men in my supply chain with no income from my flock. I turned to my local cooperative, Shetland Livestock Marketing Group for help and the following season I was able to start selling direct.
Positive feedback from friends and relations proved that I could supply Native Shetland Lamb by post and in 2009 the Briggs' Shetland Lamb website was launched to make my Native Shetland Lamb available to all UK mainland post codes
It took a year or two to be certain but eventually I came to understand that the extra sweetness, tenderness and succulence of the meat I found in my Native Shetland Lamb was consistent year after year. It also explains why my lambs were being exported to Northern Italy. They have a food culture that values quality and provenance above standardised shapes at a low price.
Back in 2005, when I looked at the numbers, I found that I was working for all the middle men in my supply chain with no income from my flock. I turned to my local cooperative, Shetland Livestock Marketing Group for help and the following season I was able to start selling direct.
Positive feedback from friends and relations proved that I could supply Native Shetland Lamb by post and in 2009 the Briggs' Shetland Lamb website was launched to make my Native Shetland Lamb available to all UK mainland post codes