A new direct to consumer meat box delivery service which claims to offer shoppers “unmatched traceability” has been launched by start-up supplier Happy Meat.
The Devon-based brand started taking orders today (18 November) for what it also described as Britain’s first “climate-friendly” beef, which was both premium grade and traceable to a single free-range cow.
Happy Meat was established by the Dutch investors behind the Crowdbutching crowdfunding website, which allows shoppers to buy and share a whole cow and the meat sourced from it. Meat sold through the new venture was sourced from free-ranging “dual purpose” cows reared at cheesemaker Lye Cross Farm in Somerset, which produced both milk and ultimately meat, the company said.
Once a Happy Meat cow had lived out its milking life it provided beef for about 75 meat boxes. Each box carried the ear-tag number of the cow that produced each meat product, in addition to details on its breed, the full name of the farmer which reared it and where the cow was slaughtered and butchered. This gave Happy Meat “ground-breaking” traceability credentials, it claimed.
Beef sold by the business was fed on grass, waste food residues such as potato peels and locally (or European) sourced grain, it said, with no feed sourced from areas affected by deforestation.
As a result of the way the animals were fed and their use as both dairy and beef cows, Happy Meat beef had a 76% lower carbon footprint compared to beef produced using standard methods [based on UN FAO carbon footprint calculations], the business claimed.
“Not only is Happy Meat climate-friendly, our cows live significantly longer than typical beef cows and aren’t pushed hard for milk like typical dairy cows,” said Happy Meat MD Iman Fatehi. “This promises them a greater standard of life as well as premium grade marbling on their beef.”
Ordered through the Happy Meat website, the meat is delivered nationwide as a 3kg box, consisting of 15 products across a variety of five, 21-day aged cuts (rsp: £39.99 plus £6.95 delivery).
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