The British Simmental Review 2022

Meriden Farm beef and lamb
box scheme
Charlie Beaty’s beef and lamb box enterprise is providing a
welcome boost to the family’s farming business.
“Yes, there are margins to be made, however we’re also getting
a lot of satisfaction from selling our own Simmental beef at
the farm gate: it’s 100% forage fed, locally slaughtered, hung
28 days, totally natural, no processing,” she says. “And it’s
particularly rewarding to hear from repeat customers - we love
the interaction; they come back saying they’ve never eaten
such high-quality meat before. We know we’re getting things
right.
“By close of 2021, we’d sold nine cattle through the beef
boxes in 12 months, whilst demand for lamb boxes has almost
doubled in the last two years to 15 boxes per month. Margins
on the lamb box are slimmer than those for beef, however we
regard lamb as a marketing tool to selling more beef.
“We keep things simple. I use social media for marketing
purposes - I’ve over 10,000 followers across Facebook
and Instagram, whilst all sales are via social media too. The
boxes have to be pre-ordered one month in advance prior
to collection at the farmgate on one set day per month.
The logistics require quite a lot of organising the day before
collection, however we don’t have any real over heads and the
whole sales operation is completed for the month in a very
short time period.”
Prior to launch, Charlie with some help from her mother, Mary
Ann carried out essential market research and then established
price points to ensure the enterprise would be economically
viable. “We used local Facebook groups to determine the level
of interest in locally reared, forage reared beef and grass-fed
lamb, and concluded that living halfway between Birmingham
and Solihull does have advantages, however we’ve since found
the majority of customers live in affluent areas within a fivemile
radius of the farm.
“While lamb was relatively
straight forward to market
with a limited volume and
number of cuts per carcase,
beef has proved more of a
challenge. One 375kg heifer
carcase can be split in seven
different cuts - quick and slow
roasting joints, rump and
sirloin steak, mince, stewing
and braising steak - packed in
to 22 general boxes, leaving
the high value rib of beef and
ribeye steaks for individual sale along with fillet steaks.
“Initial trade was helped by (Covid) lock down, particularly
in the start-up months, however, confident that we have an
established customer base with potential for growth, in the
near future we would like to increase sales to at least 12 cattle
per year through the beef boxes.”
The Review 2022 | 21