Farshad Kazemian: the butcher on a sustainable mission

The environmental impact of meat is once again in the spotlight. Last month, the Climate Change Committee’s seventh carbon budget warned the UK had gone “off track” on its net zero ambitions – and recommended Brits reduce the meat in their diets by 35% come 2050.

It’s a point of contention for The Ethical Butcher co-founder and CEO Farshad Kazemian. He’s on a mission to get people to eat more, not less, meat. That comes with a caveat: that meat should be sourced from farms using regenerative agriculture production techniques, like all 20 of his suppliers.

So passionate is Kazemian that he founded the Regenuary movement – an initiative that calls on consumers to eat food farmed regeneratively, designed as a counterpoint to Veganuary. Meat produced to these methods can have a net positive impact on the environment, he argues.

“Regenerative practices rebuild the land, enhance carbon sequestration and create a food system that gives back more than it takes,” Kazemian says.

That message appears to be getting through to his target audience. Following a tough post-Covid comedown, his high-end DTC and wholesale meat retailer is back in growth mode. And a brand new HQ is set to finally give The Ethical Butcher the scale needed to supply pasture-fed, regenerative meat to major supermarkets.

These plans are in stark contrast to Kazemian’s ambitions when he first arrived in the UK. He came as a student from his native Iran, alongside his wife Shabnam, in 2003. Back then, he knew next to nothing about the livestock trade, having studied law – just like his mother and grandfather – in his home city of Tehran.

“The ambition of the family was that I become a lawyer,” he says. However, Kazemian’s English was not proficient enough to practise in the UK. So he instead pursued a masters in business tourism and travel services management at the University of Westminster.

It was just before commencing the masters that a family friend introduced him to Christiaan Rook, who ran multiple Smithfield Market outlets. It was “the most profitable meat business in the country”, Kazemian remembers, supplying premium meat to high-end hotels such as Claridge’s. Rook soon took him under his wing. “My English was very basic,” he says. “So Christiaan said, come and learn the real language in the market.”

Between October 2003 and January 2004, Kazemian took on an unpaid role at Smithfield, selling Rook’s meat to the public. The days were brutally long: he would work from 4am to 8am before heading off to language school and then an afternoon job in a library.

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Once proficient in English, he concentrated on his masters. He returned to Rook’s business in 2007, where he took on credit control and accounts positions.

But by 2012, Kazemian was becoming restless and wanted to run his own business. So, using some saffron grower contacts made while studying in Iran, he started importing the spice to restaurants in London.

By 2014, what was by then called Exquisite Range had won a Great Taste Award for best imported speciality. He was also selling meat sourced from Rook’s Smithfield operation, and earning more from his side business than his day job.

With a self-confessed “dodgy accent”, Kazemian’s cheeky sales technique involved calling up restaurants claiming to be “the new butcher”, knowing he would be put through to a confused head chef protesting: “I don’t have a bloody new butcher”. But it was a way in – and Kazemian could then pitch directly.

Regenerative epiphany

Soon, though, he became aware of a wider issue affecting his business. “This was the era of the meat-free boom and alternative proteins. And for the first time I began to realise the damaging impact of industrial agriculture.”

Kazemian looked into research espousing the benefits of regenerative farming techniques. A lightbulb moment came: “that’s our USP”. After meeting lapsed vegetarian photographer and filmmaker Glen Burrows, the pair set about “improving meat” in 2018.

Following a £335,000 crowdfunding round, a newly rebranded and repositioned The Ethical Butcher – sourcing meat from only Pasture for Life-accredited farms – was ready to launch by February 2020, just a few weeks before the first Covid lockdown.

“In the first two weeks, we sold about 50 meat boxes. Then, when our social media ads went live [and as lockdown took hold] sales jumped to 600 a week.”

In fact, demand was so buoyant that the company’s then four-strong team was left struggling to keep up.

At the end of the first lockdown, the company grew further. It pushed back into the restaurant sector, with customers including Honest Burgers and Wahaca. To keep up with demand, it cemented a deal with sustainable production-focused processor Buitelaar.

But the end of the pandemic heralded new buying patterns. As lockdowns ended and online sales went into decline, The Ethical Butcher started to face “significant challenges”.

“The surge in fuel and energy prices, coupled with the ongoing difficulties of Brexit, created a highly challenging environment,” Kazemian says. “Adding to this complexity, the availability of products we were happy to sell was extremely limited and expensive,” he adds.

“While we were losing cash rapidly, securing new funding was difficult. We needed further investment, but our investors were not ready at the time, making it an incredibly tough period for the business.”

Further crowdfunding in 2021 (raising £1.4m) and in 2023 (via a private round), plus a restructure of the business ultimately brought it back on an even keel. Today, sales are now back to the levels of the pandemic boom, he says.

“For the first time I began to realise the damaging impact of industrial agriculture”

In beef, for instance, the business is sourcing “about 10 times more cattle” than it did during the lean months post-Covid. “We’ve been profitable since Q4 last year. What truly sets us apart is our unique supply chain, which is built on strong, collaborative relationships with our farmers,” he says. In fact, 70% of the business is now owned by those same people.

Up next is a move out of its west London startup location to a new factory based near Heathrow, which has 10 times more capacity, later this spring.

The move will finally ensure The Ethical Butcher has the capacity to service a supermarket contract. Given the ongoing conversations with a number of retailers, “it’s only a matter of time” before its meat will be available in the mults, Kazemian insists.

Regenerative farming-produced meat will be “well established as a key category in the market” within the next five years, he believes. “As agrochemical prices rise, more farmers are turning to natural resources to produce better, healthier food,” Kazemian adds. “This shift offers benefits for everyone, and we’re already seeing ourselves play a significant role.”