Grandad’s Beef pulls meat from small, family-run farms that use regenerative farming practices. Their latest venture is subscription meat boxes, as the family continues its mission to improve the health of their animals, the environment and the waterways.

While Cliff and his wife Maureen concentrate on the farming side of things, their daughter Tracey Bayliss is responsible for their meat reaching the table.

“Initially, I went to the farmers’ markets to sell our meat, and although there was a good following of people wanting to support little, support local, sometimes we only sold half a carcass,” says Tracey.

Tracey fully believes that if we kill an animal that we should adopt full ‘nose-to-tail dining’ so that very little of the edible content is wasted. Her experience with supermarkets and restaurants was that they only wanted the familiar cuts such as mince, steaks and sausages.

“When the animals are killed through the abattoir, due to regulations, only the meat comes back, and the processing plant keeps all of the offal which is then mostly exported overseas.”

Tracey hopes to increase the numbers being processed to enable her to use the services of a mobile abattoir that recently passed the stringent process of being certified. Then animals can be killed on farm and the offal may be kept for New Zealand consumers.

“We really need to get better at eating all of the animal and our new subscription boxes encourage just that.”

Using their own meat, and meat sourced from other like-minded farms accredited by the Bayliss’, the carcasses are butchered by Hannah Miller from A Lady Butcher.

“Hannah’s sustainable approach to butchery, and desire to encourage nose-to-tail dining, fits in with our own philosophy and practices.”

Hannah prepares the cuts, vacuum packs them using a home compostable product, and makes up the boxes. Each box has a surprise mixture of cuts and advice for cooking them from Hannah, an ex-chef herself.

The packaging has been carefully thought through, marrying the fresh meat transport requirements of MPI, with Grandad’s Beef’s sustainability goals.

“It’s a hard sell asking people to trust us by allowing us to choose their selection, but in the past we have had overwhelming support for the quality of our meat, so we see the subscription service as a continuation of this.”

The cost of processing small numbers of animals is high, and Tracey sees the way forward is to go back to older methods of farmers selling locally straight to the consumer.

“The whole process needs to be brought back to the community and encouraging people to experiment with recipes for the many different cuts of meat available.”

For more information, visit: www.grandadsbeef.nz