From Gate to Plate
We believe the best meat comes from animals that are given the best quality of life. At Hugh Phillips Gower Butcher we’ve always thought it important to know the farmers that rear cattle we buy at market.
Protected Geographic Indication (PGI)
The European Union issues Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status to regional foods that have qualities specific to the area where they are produced.
We are proud to have PGI status for our meat, because it assures our customers that we have been thoroughly checked to ensure it is every bit as local as we say it is. PGI status protects against imitation and gives consumers the confidence of knowing exactly what they are buying and where it comes from.
Welsh Lamb and Beef
We buy our lamb and beef from local farmers, ensuring the animals travel as few miles as possible on the way to our abattoir. We’ve built up relationships with our farmers over many decades and they know exactly what we want.
We supply different types of lamb throughout the year. The start of the season brings tender, mild-tasting spring lamb, followed by Gower salt marsh lamb in the early summer. Raised on the unique herbage of North Gower’s salt marshes, these lambs develop a distinctive, sweet tasting meat that is rightly considered a Welsh delicacy. Later in the year we offer hogget, a more mature meat that has wonderful depth of flavour.
Our beef comes from limousin and chararolais cattle – breeds we have settled on after years of experience in farming and butchery. Like our lambs, our cattle come from local farms. By ensuring they travel only a short distance to reach us, we know that their stress levels are kept low. This is important for their welfare, and also results in meat with a better texture.
Our Farmers
Beef
Our beef comes from two farmers, both of whom we know very well because our families have worked together for years.
Ian Smith in Oxwich on Gower is a third generation farmer whose family have supplied us for decades. Ian rears all his own cattle and specially selects animals for us. Their first ever journey is the one they make to us, keeping food miles and stress levels as low as possible.
Our other beef supplier is Stephen Jones of Gorscoed farm in Pontlliw. Like Ian, he is a third generation farmer. His father Morlais and Cath’s father, Hugh, first met in Gowerton mart and we have bought cattle from him ever since. Stephen draws on generations of farming knowledge to select the finest cattle for us.
Lamb
Most of our lamb comes from Ian Smith of Oxwich Bay Farm on Gower, who also supplies us with beef. He rears his own animals and has been a trusted supplier for many years.
At certain times of year, we also buy from local farmers at Llandeilo mart. We have very high standards, so we prefer to go and pick the lambs ourselves rather than relying on the farmers to pick them for us. We source spring lamb from the mart, and also buy at the mart’s Easter sale and show.
Our salt marsh lamb comes from Rowland Pritchard of Weobley Castle, Llanrhidian on Gower. He and Cath’s father Hugh have known each other for years, and we started selling their salt marsh lamb as soon as they launched the product over a decade ago.
At Christmas we go out and make special selections from Christmas Show and Sale in Builth Wells. We like to buy the supreme champions and to find animals that will meet our customers’ special requirements – for example, we get requests for extra large legs of lamb to feed big Christmas gatherings.
Pork
Our pork comes from Mr and Mrs Wendell Whittal-Williams and their son Roger, whose farm is in the Gelli Wen valley of Carmarthenshire.
We buy from them because they are able to meet our very exacting requirements: we only buy the offspring of Large White sows bred with Pietrain boars, which yield a large amount of excellent quality meat.
We struck up our relationship in August 2009 and we are delighted with the pigs they supply. We are part of the Porc Wales scheme, giving customers total confidence that we are buying locally.