FW Awards 2011: Pig Farmer of the Year finalist – Anna Longthorp
Anna Longthorp
Anna’s Happy Trotters, Howden, East Yorkshire
Few farmers succeed in dictating the price of their products to customers, but Anna Longhtorp has, in just three years, achieved it. The catalyst was a broken retail promise and contract. She decided then that she had to be in the driving seat to ensure consistent and fair prices, rather than be at the mercy of customer whims.
The result of this 28 year old’s determination and hard work is a local, high welfare Anna’s Happy Trotter brand which she sells direct to 23 butchers, wholesalers, restaurants and shops. The abattoir, haulage, pig feed and ingredients for her own food products are all sourced locally.
These regular customers have been secured through promotional material she has designed herself, online with her own website and her strong relationships with butcheries. She has gained two wholesaler contracts that have taken the business to a new level.
She is in the fortunate position of having her family’s 720ha arable, contracting and pig business behind her, but in Anna’s Happy Trotters she has put her own unique stamp on LKL farming with this highly successful added value, market-focused enterprise.
“We have always bred our pigs outside, but in 2007 we decided to take it one step further and carry on growing pigs after weaning outside, rather than in barns, so they would be 100% free range,” she explains. She points out that while about 40% of UK pigs are born outside, only 1-2% are reared and grown in free range conditions, which makes her own brand so unique.
Anna oversees all three breeding herds and two free-range finishing units, co-ordinating weaners from breeding to finishing and finished pigs to the abattoir. A careful mix of new and old breeds free to range produces a top-quality eating product, she says. The Landrace crossed with the hardier Duroc sows produce pigs that have low levels of backfat and marbled meat, which gives flavour and succulence. The leanness and large-size chops come from the muscular Maximus boar.
After four weeks the piglets are weaned and placed in one-acre paddocks with tents which they share with 100 other pigs. Only gilts are sent to the free-range finishing sites as she believes they are of higher eating quality and remain calmer without males.
Since the move to free range, she has invested in her own butchery to manufacture Anna’s Happy Trotter sausages and bacon to sell direct to restaurants, shops and high-quality retail outlets. She dry cures her own free-range bacon and gammon and has just developed a new black treacle cured line. Her “Porkshire Terrier” sausages, which are made using York Brewery’s Yorkshire Terrier beer are proving particularly popular.
She is a great advocate of her products and provides recipes, brochures and posters at point of sale as well as a host of PR activities including writing her own press releases, a website and several radio and TV appearances – including ITV’s Alan Titchmarsh Show. Anna also attends Meet the Producer events, food festivals and farmers markets and in-house cooking demonstrations. The farm is involved in the Food for Life partnership and hosts many school visits and Anna also gets involved with the WI and Ladies in Pigs to promote the pig industry.
Anna’s vision is to have the progeny from all of the family’s 2,100 sows sold under the Anna’s Happy Trotters brand and increase the amount of pigs that are totally free range. She is conducting a trial to increase the levels of Omega-3 fatty acids in her pork products.
What this 28-year-old has achieved in such a short time is remarkable, but there is clearly so much more she wants to do.
Farm facts
• Anna’s Happy Trotters, Howden, East Yorkshire
• 2,100 breeding sows over three units
• Sell 250 free range pigs a week
• Cost of production £1.49
What the judges liked
• Created a sustainable economic business plan
• Gone for high welfare
• Impressive marketing skills and customer focus