Wark Farm

Our produce is available on regular once per month cycle on what we call our Open Days. There are three ways to buy:

Every month, in advance of the Open Days, we send out an email with some topical news and views from the farm which confirms that month's dates, what products are available and contains a link to that months order form. If you would like to receive this email please enter your email below.

Our Belted Galloway Beef is all grass fed and slow grown to allow it to mature at a natural speed. Most of the beef is from animals around three years old to give it a depth of flavour and fat distribution that really enhances the quality of the beef. Our aim is to be selling beef that really is beefy. Meat is hung for around three - four weeks to mature. We offer a full range of standard cuts but are happy to cut to special request for particular requirements.

Text for "Goose" section.

Throughout the year we have available either new season lamb or more often hogget (lamb aged between one and two years). The grass fed Hebridean meat has a rich full flavour that is unmistakably lamb. It tends to be darker than some other lamb and has a nice fat distribution. We select our lamb to give enough fat for flavour and cooking without over fatness. The meat is normally hung for around two weeks. A wide range of joints and cuts are available and we are happy to prepare special requests. From time to time we also offer mutton (from sheep over two years old).

Using pork from traditional breed pigs (Tamworth, Saddleback, Gloucester Old Spot), normally supplied by another local organic farm we produce a range of dry cured bacon. This is made in the traditional way by rubbing curing salt/sugar mixtures into meat, drawing out much of the moisture leaving a firm dry joint without over saltiness. Some of these cured loins, bellies and collars are then cold smoked in beech wood smoke, for up to two days, allowing us to offer a high quality range of unsmoked and smoked Back, Streaky and Collar bacon.

When we first started retailing meat from the farm we produced a lot of our own pork from Oxford, Sandy & Black pigs, a traditional breed. From this we developed a pie, called the Spotty Pig Pork Pie, a take on the traditional raised pork pie, which we sold in their thousands around Aberdeenshire, at farmers markets and in deli's, farm shops and pubs. While we no longer have our own pigs we continue to produce the pies using pork from traditional breed pigs (Tamworth, Saddleback, Gloucester Old Spot), normally supplied from another local organic farm. They are individual sized pies, made from first principles in our butchery using organic flour, our own eggs, butter, lard (which we render from the spare fat from our pork butchery) and goose fat for the pastry. They can be purchased cooked and chilled (ready to eat), frozen (uncooked for baking at home) or warm, ready to eat, from Banchory Farmers Market.

We source our venison from an estate about 15 minutes from the farm. Normally it is wild roe deer venison, sometimes wild red deer or occasionally farmed red deer, all from the same estate. Keeping it simple, we produce a limited range of cuts from the venison but are happy to butcher to specific requests for different cuts. It is available year round, although at times supplies may be limited or the product frozen, as obtaining the wild product can be unpredictable.

From time to time during the year we offer one-off specials as they become available or at the request of customers. Typically during the year, we may offer game such as pheasant, grouse and rabbit, wild pigeon and squab (young doocot, farmed, pigeon). At Christmas we offer turkey, from another local farm and geese (sometimes our own, sometimes from an organic farm elsewhere). On a regular basis, but in small numbers, we have bowling fowl, usually cockerels which are ideal for slower cooking and dishes such as coq-au-vin.

We have a small flock of very free-ranging laying hens at the farm, primarily for eggs for the pork pie pastry but we usually have a surplus available for sale also. Ranging as they do, with unrestricted access to plenty of green grass and places to scratch around, the eggs yolks are very yellow, more orange in fact, and taste very good.