Highgrove Farm – Year One
Part One – The first Six Month There’s a lot to report, so we’ve broken it into two posts: the first six months with a bit of an intro about
Who wants some Pender Pork?
Tags: Pigs
Are you interested in buying local, improving resilience and purchasing high quality pork while supporting local farming? Then this is your lucky day!
Only 1 half portion left! Get your order in soon!
The short and sweet version!
We sell our pork in whole, sides (half), and quarters. If you order a whole or side, you get to customize what cuts of meat you like. If you order a quarter, you get butcher’s choice. To add your name to the list, click here to bring up the order form and we’ll send you a confirmation email to get the process started.
If you have any questions about the details of pricing and process, read on!
Our Pigs
Our pigs are mixed-breed Durock, Hampshire, Landrace and Yorkshire. Our goal throughout has been to raise the happiest, healthiest pigs possible.
Apart from basking in the sun and taking mud baths in their wallows, our pigs have been eating a combination of high-quality Vancouver Island-sourced feed, apple pomace, fallen fruit from our trees, kitchen scraps from the HUB (our local restaurant) and all the natural offerings from the pasture. Rounded out with plenty of back scratching, these have been some pretty contented pigs.
How’s does the process work?
We know many people have never bought meat directly from the farmer, so we want to walk you through the process. We know you all only want the bacon, but farmers traditionally sell meat by the whole animal, the side (half) or the quarter. Buying a side is the most common way to do it and it represents enough pork for a small family or a few friends for a year (unless you are big meat eaters).
What’s in a side?
Each side has a mix of pork chops, roasts, sausages, ribs, ham and bacon.
When you order a whole or a side, you get to select the size of roasts, thickness of chops, bone-in or boneless, which cuts you’d like cured or smoked, and what sort of sausage you prefer (if any). We guestimate that you’ll get about 100 pounds of finished pork per side and around 50 pounds per quarter – with variation coming from the size of the pig, and the selection of bone-in vs. boneless cuts. (Billing is done based on hanging weight1.)
Quarters are generally the same mix of cuts, but, obviously, since we’re dividing a side and there is some variation in the cuts from front to back, it won’t be exactly the same.
What will it cost?
We’re offering our pork at $5/pound (based on the hanging weight1) plus the butchering costs. The price of butchering varies slightly based on your custom cutting requests, but run $1.25 per pound for regular cuts, and slightly more for smoked meat (like hams and bacon) or sausages. Butchering will be done by Braun Meats in Duncan. We guestimate your invoice to be in the neighborhood of $1,000 (incl. pork, butchering and taxes) for a side (and about half that for a quarter).
Again, variation in price is a result of pig size and butchering choices.
It’s hard to do a direct price comparison with retail prices, but last year we calculated that our happy healthy pork was about 10 or 15% more expensive than buying industrially produced pork cuts at Thrifty Foods.
Pick-up Process
Your pork will come frozen from the butcher. It is critical that you’re able to pick it up the day it’s ready at 5441 Highgrove Rd (see map), as we don’t have freezer space for 14 sides! We’re expecting the orders to be ready the end of August / beginning of September, but it depends on the butcher. The pigs have a date at Braun for August 19th and they tell us to expect one to two weeks for processing. We’ll give you as much advance notice as possible. Plan on having about 3 cubic feet of freezer space ready for a side
Order Now – ONLY 1 Half Portion Left (or 2 quarters)
We’ll be taking orders on a first-come, first-served basis. We opened our sales up first to our customers from last year and so over half of our pork is already sold. Please fill out the form here to reserve your pork. We request $100 deposit on all pre-orders, due by August 19th.
We will follow up with emails (or phone calls if preferred) to confirm your order, and to collect your custom butchering requests. We anticipate having your pork available for pick-up in the first week of September.
Contact us directly if you have any questions
1 Live weight refers to the weight of the animal when it goes to market. The hanging weight is the weight after slaughter which removes much of the internal organs – leaving about 70% of the live weight. The actual weight of final meat products is reduced again by about 30% of the hanging weight as most bones and excess fat is removed. Again, the final weight of meat will depend on the custom cutting instructions you choose.
A Practical Food Security Plan
Now that the dust is starting to settle from the emergency response to the pandemic, many of us are starting to think about what lies ahead. In our little island