Flock and Herd Butchery

[lane lover]

F&H made the Evening Standard Top 10 today:

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/foodanddrink/join-the-meat-queue-the-london-butchers-we-are-hankering-after-8549421.html

[Peckhamrye]

Quite right too!

[dumpertruck]

I'm sure it's a good butcher, but these Top Ten lists are pointless. What's the criteria? Who chooses them? Some intern will just trawl through the internet and select some likely candidates from north, south, east and west London. Job done.

[citylover]

Just so that people who are going to their local butcher to avoid certain things know, there is a huge difference between free range and organic meat. For example, free-range aanimals can be fed with feed containing genetically modified foodstuffs. NB this applies to free-range meat generally, I'm not picking out any particular butchers here. For those who care about this kind of stuff please let your local butcher know, whoever they are. Here's a definition of free-range I got from the net:

Free-range does not necessarily mean organic. Free-range refers to food from animals, for example meat or eggs, that are produced from animals that have access to outdoor spaces. Usually, free-range also stands for animals who have free access to graze or forage for food.

Free-range, unlike organic, is not a certification. Organically raised food is free-range, meaning animals must have access to pasture, but to be certified organic, food must meet stringent criteria. Free-range food doesn't have to meet any particularly stringent, or even legal requirements. For example, a farm claiming free-range falsely will not likely get into trouble, but a farm falsely claiming organic certification will get into trouble and have to deal with major fines.

Also Known As: Free-roaming, cage-free, pasture-raised

So, if anyone is buying free-range to avoid chemicals, antibiotics etc that's not necessarily what you are getting. This isn't anything specific against flock and herd, which is obviously a quality butcher, but it applies to free-range meat generally and if we want to buy really healthy meat we have to demand it.

[civilservant]

for me, its free range that matters i.e the animal's welfare prior to slaughter. I was quite taken by Charlie's original post about 'saucing free range animals from small farms that have had time to grow slowly and have lived a happy life'. If I'm going to eat meat, then I'd need to know something like that to salve my conscience!

AS for really healthy meat, if an animal has had a relatively stress-free life, it will have needed fewer antibiotics and have better quality meat than one raised on the purest of feed while confined to a cage. Organic on its own means very little.

[Dulwich Born And Bred]

Thanks for that Citylover as my chicken ( from another butchers ) just didn't taste, look or feel right but I discovered it was free range and not organic hence the texture, blood spots etc .

Any butchers selling organic chicken locally?

[StraferJack]

William rose sells a range of chicken from big standard thru free range and organic whole chickens

If you just buy breasts you may not get organic but probably cheaper to buy an organic bird and have the rest of the chicken too. And that fits in with the organic ethos