The better way to buy meat

With 33% of food produced globally being lost or wasted each year, equalling a huge 8% of all greenhouse gas emissions, minimising food waste is integral to a sustainable diet. We play our part in reducing waste by sourcing to order and working with FareShare South West. However, if we truly want to eat meat in a sustainable way, we need to be buying and eating meat in natural proportions.

Natural proportions = reduced waste

Eating in natural proportions is the art of carcass balancing. This is not new or innovative – in fact, it’s how butchers would have been supplying meat back in the 40s and 50s. To put it simply, this is the practice of proactively using and balancing the whole animal rather than prioritising only the most popular cuts.

Take chicken as an example. For every two chicken breasts we deliver, we also need to sell the thigh, wing, and leg from that chicken. The benefit of eating in natural proportions (selling all cuts from that chicken) reduces waste and in turn makes the economics of free-range chicken farming more sustainable. The same can be said for beef. With every whole animal you have the desired products (think cuts like forerib and sirloin), the less popular co-products (like cheek) and by-products (the least popular cuts and inedible parts of the animal).

The better way to buy meat

Supermarkets and large retailers function on supply and demand. The customer wants to buy chicken breast, the buyer sources this from the farmer or processor, and the rest of the cuts are not accounted for or prioritised in store.

Our approach is different. We are constantly trying to buy in natural proportional balance, helping our farmers to get the most value from their animals and reducing food waste in the process. In the case of chicken, our team are constantly creating new and exciting ways to better balance the whole bird.

Particularly relevant in current times, eating in natural proportions on a mass scale would also help to stabilise the cost of meat. When ordering only the most desired cuts, the resulting increased quantity of low value secondary cuts is off-set by increasing the cost of the premium cuts. A commitment to eating in balance will really help the economics on the farm, reduce wastage and keep free-range prices stable.