Traceability is a buzz word in the food industry as more and more shoppers, quite rightly, demand to know exactly where the food on their plate comes from.
It’s also a top priority for judges in the Great Taste Awards (the food industry’s equivalent of the Oscars). A major reason why Isle of Man Meats won 6 awards this year was the fact that we could easily trace our products back to a specific Manx farm. That includes Bayview Farm in Ballamodha where Shaun and Jane Dean and their family rear top quality pigs in a healthy environment. Bayview provided belly pork which received 2-Stars from the judges, and their shoulder of pork which got a 1-Star rating.
Winners receive 1-Star, 2-Star or 3-Star awards and all of the ratings are symbols of exceptional quality. Producers from 108 countries entered 14,113 products in this year’s awards – only 30% received any star rating, and fewer than 10% received 2-Stars. The standard was so high that only 218 entries (around 1.5% of the total) received 3-Stars.
Great Taste Awards in the meat categories can only be won by farmers who put their heart and soul into rearing top quality livestock 365 days a year. Using the knowledge and experience gained from more than 30 years as a pig farmer, Shaun makes sure that everything is geared to achieving high standards. Unlike many farms in the UK and further afield, he rejects the routine use of antibiotics in feed and water. In fact, over 99% of livestock he’s bred on the farm have never had antibiotics. That’s because he favours a more natural approach which is based on allowing pigs to eat a balanced diet that includes barley and wheat grown on Manx farms. The health and wellbeing of his livestock is independently monitored via veterinary inspections every three months, visitors to the farm are strictly controlled to reduce the risk of infection from outside sources, and pigs spend as much time as possible outside in the fresh Manx air.
All of that hard work results in our network of butchers and other retailers being able to sell a range of top quality pork products – if you haven’t tried it yet, we can promise you that you really will taste the difference! But don’t just take our word for it, check out the 2021 Great Taste Awards judges’ fantastic comments below after they tucked into the delicious Isle of Man Meats belly pork and shoulder of pork from Bayview Farm.
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