Thrive, not survive Mary finds out more about a new recipe box business which is using homegrown, delicious regeneratively farmed beef
V
ICKY HOWE AND her husband farm 1,000 acres near Sleaford. It’s a mainly arable farm but obviously the soil still needs looking after to make sure it stays fertile; you need to put back what is taken out. And the best way to do this is to combine the arable crops with a beef herd. So that is what they have done. Initially they were going to just rear the herd and then send them to be finished elsewhere but Vicky quickly decided that this was not best for the animals or for them, financially. The herd is moved daily around 150 acres of grass (which changes yearly). This looks after the soil as it is trodden, so causes it to regenerate and grazing the grass neutralises the carbon output. This is the perfect crop rotation as the arable crops are grown on the grass the following year. All their cattle are free range, finished on grass, fed fresh grass every day and live outside all year round. So, as well as being extremely good for the soil and helping with the crop rotation the meat quality of this method of farming - regenerative - is excellent. High in Omega 3 (scientifically proven) and delicious tasting meat which is carbon negative. So what do you do with these cows now you have decided to finish them yourself? You start a recipe box business, and that is just what Vicky has done. Of course this sounds very simple but it is far from being that. But Vicky has method behind her madness. Her background is in catering and business. She is a cordon bleu chef and a farmer’s daughter with an agriculture and food management
business degree. Before moving back to Lincolnshire she worked for Waitrose so has a strong business/food background. And she used this background to set up a kitchen at the farm 17 years ago and supplies school lunches to many of the primary schools in Lincolnshire; 5,000 meals a day across the county. Most of the meals are prepared at the farm and the rest from school kitchens. From their bespoke kitchen they cook, then deliver the meals which
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