Focus: Including worth to a sheep enterprise with ‘lamb ham’

By Barbara Collins

Alan and Wendy Dempster breed sheep on their 50ac farm close to Ballymoney in Co. Antrim. It’s a fourth-generation, family-owned farm the place they rear and breed 120 sheep.

The breeds are Suffolk and Texel crosses which they are saying make an excellent carcass. They’re “hoping to work with Dutch Noticed lamb; it is extremely fashionable for the time being, and we have an interest to see what sort of meat they’ll produce”, Wendy stated.

“My husband is a part-time sheep farmer. The sheep had been housed for lambing in March, however they’ve now swapped to lambing outdoors in April as a result of they suppose it’s more healthy. The dream is for him to go full-time.”

Wendy herself is a reasonably current recruit to farming. “My introduction to farming actually occurred throughout [the Covid-19] lockdown,” she defined.

“I had lived on the farm for about eight years with my husband and daughter however was actually solely ever concerned on the weekends as I commuted to my accountancy job in Belfast all week.

“Throughout the pandemic I used to be furloughed and began getting extra fingers on. It gave me an actual appreciation for the work and dedication that goes into producing the excessive commonplace of lamb.”

Wendy began her personal flock from orphaned lambs throughout the pandemic lockdown, bottle feeding six occasions a day to start with.

“I used to be decided to study the method from begin to end. Naively I named them: Snow White; Princess Fiona; Darcy; Missy; Harriett… you get the thought. These are a number of the moms to the Farm High quality Assured, grass-fed lambs which we now rear.

“The primary lamb being born into my flock was extraordinarily particular to me and I like having the chance to be revolutionary in a vastly male dominated sector.

“It’s small milestones that make my job in agri value it. E.g., once I had an aged farmer from down the highway inform me he had heard about my concoction for bloated lambs and will I make him up some?”

Diversifying from the sheep enterprise

Costs on the mart or the manufacturing unit hardly ever go £5.00/kg, with the typical being £4.50/kg, so Alan and Wendy determined to diversify.

“After having the prices concerned highlighted, we realised we would have liked to extend the worth of our lambs to make sheep farming viable and the best way to take action was to showcase the nice high quality of the product in a strategy to attraction to a bigger market,” Wendy continued.

“We needed so as to add worth to our meat. I used to be taken with completely different cures. I like a wee little bit of charcuterie and cheeseboard and that’s the place the thought for lamb ham got here from. There was nothing on the market.

“I used to be on every part you could possibly learn or watch on how one can remedy lamb. It took a couple of months and some errors however three months, takes about two weeks to remedy. I exploit moist slightly than dry remedy as a result of it’s faster.”

She says a few of her market analysis concerned making dinner. 

“I held a couple of shepherdess suppers and received folks to attempt it and the suggestions was nice. They had been the primary folks ever to get to style it. We had evaluate playing cards and all however one stated the lamb ham was the spotlight of the night for them,” Wendy stated.

They transformed a horsebox right into a cell kitchen and labored with the School of Agriculture, Meals and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) in Cookstown, Co.Tyrone to develop recipes. Since then, their marketing strategy has developed.

“The preliminary plan was to take our lamb to occasions and promote from our upcycled horsebox referred to as the ‘Lamb Van’ at farmers’ markets and occasions. however we’ve since organically expanded into retail.

Lamb ham

So, is lamb a tough promote?

“It’s seen as a special day meat, so the problem was to get folks to see its well being advantages. Folks have this mistaken concept that lamb meat could be very fatty, however it’s really an excellent sort of fats,” Wendy defined.

She stated that making and promoting hand-held snacks is working for them.

“We hook them in with our lamb sausage rolls and burgers after which they arrive again for extra,” she added.

“On the second day at an occasion, a younger boy got here to purchase a lamb burger with the cash his dad had gave him as a result of he had beloved the one he received the day earlier than. That melted my coronary heart. I despatched him house with a couple of for his freezer.

“A couple of weeks later at an agricultural present he got here again together with his dad and brothers so all of them may have burgers. Issues like that make all of the exhausting work value it.

“Including additional worth to our lambs will hopefully make it attainable for Alan to farm full-time. It is a driving issue for us,” Wendy stated.

“I served my time as an electrician,” Alan added. “I all the time stored a couple of sheep. I knew from an early age the place my ardour lay. Sheep farming was in my blood.

“This can be very exhausting to make sheep farming viable, particularly with the ever-increasing prices concerned.

“By rising the worth of the top product from the farm, I hope to make the transition to full-time. Time will inform,” Alan concluded.