Berkshires Around the Region
Uploaded February 2007

In a new feature, we are looking to see how far and wide we Berkshire owners have spread and share with the rest of this very select community the sort of things that we get up to in our area.

In this issue we are looking at The South West of England, were Sue Fildes has jotted down her perspective on the market there.

The second article is at the northern extremes of the UK with a personal account of Berkshires arriving in Orkney.

Finally, just to confirm that Berkshires are not confined to the UK, we have a view for the other side of the world, with stories from Australia and New Zealand.

First report then from Sue:
The South West has benefited from a lot of media attention to buying naturally reared 'local' food. Pure Berkshire pork is again in the limelight after winning the Soil Association Pork Award for the second time in three years in a blind taste test.

I sense that Berkshire producers in this area are now limited by how much they want to produce, rather than how much they can sell, as the market seems in-exhaustable at the moment. I have a very inconvenient 2 month gap without finishers after reducing my sow numbers back to a dozen. So I am trying to put some gilts to boar at the right time to fill this gap, perhaps building the numbers back up again with a better spread over the 6 month cycle so that the quantity of finishers at any one time doesn't overwhelm me.

I sell all my finished pork by the carcase, deadweight, rarely selling direct. Better returns are available with direct marketing, and farmers markets. Also weaner sales are very good, especially in the summer months, and I am picking up repeat custom from local people who want to produce good pork commercially on-going, but without the bother of breeding it for themselves.

Breeding stock are also in demand, I have just taken a provisional order for gilts from three bloodlines, to include January gilts not yet born.

It is really satisfying to be produce something so lovely to keep, so nice to eat, and so much in demand.