Award-winning butchers joins Britain's Best

Grasmere Farm Traditional Butchers’ shops in Market Deeping and Stamford have been awarded membership of the national Butchers Q Guild.

The business now ranks as one of the highest quality butchers in the UK, as the Q Guild brand is widely recognised as a seal of excellence – it has just 110 members, all leading, award-winning

butchers from the Scottish Highlands to the south coast.

The Stables family has farmed the land around Deeping St James since 1969. On the advice of a local butcher, Stuart Stables started making his own traditional Lincolnshire Sausages in the early 1990s. They proved so popular that he soon diversified into other pork products, before launching the first Grasmere Farm Traditional Butchers shop in Market Gate, Market Deeping, in 2007, followed in 2010 by a second shop in Stamford High Street.

Grasmere Farm Traditional Butchers, which also opened a third shop two years ago in Westgate Arcade, Peterborough, describes itself as a family butchery business with an absolute passion to

provide customers with delicious, tender cuts of meat. It uses meat from Hampshire-cross pigs raised outdoors on the family farm in a welfare-friendly environment, then carefully prepared in its own purpose-built butchery. At any given time, the farm keeps up to 2,500 pigs, selecting around 110 per week for both its own shops and other wholesale customers.

Retail manager Will Bowell said: “Whether it is pork reared on the farm or poultry, beef and lamb sourced from our trusted network of local farms, complete traceability, a real care for food values

and provenance assures our customers that excellent quality and local sourcing are paramount to us.”

Grasmere Farm has picked up awards for its products, notably its flagship sausages and traditional dry-cured bacon. Industry accolades include a coveted Bacon Connoisseur’s Week Award and others for its sausages in the bi-annual Lincolnshire Poacher Competition, along with Lincolnshire Pride Food Hero 2015.

As well as its retail shops, Grasmere Farm continues to sell its products at regional weekly farmers markets. It also runs an online shop, along with outside catering and hog roast hire arms

of the business.

Owner Stuart Stables said: “Our retail business is now where it needs to be and we have a young, dedicated and highly skilled team of butchers. We remain fully committed to developing our own talent and these are the main reasons we were keen to join the Q Guild.

“Membership will not only benefit our retail shops, but also help take our young people to the next level by being part of a mainstream national organisation of top quality butchers. We are

relishing the journey – and hope to soon be winning prestigious Q Guild awards ourselves!”

Q Guild manager Gordon Newlands said: “The Q Guild welcome Grasmere Farms into the Guild family. The quality of the Grasmere Farm business sits nicely with the ethos of the Guild and we warmly congratulate them on their membership application being accepted. I look forward to meeting them and their staff at regional meetings and to participate in all the Guild social events. Well done Grasmere Farms.”