Wark Farm

I don't mean to tease. I do have an interesting email written with news and views on the world of farming and food, but this month there is housekeeping to be done. Back to blogging & babbling next month. For now, and being all organised, we have a few little jobs to do if you'll bear with me:

1. Along with all other businesses who hold customer data, we are required to update our records and systems to comply with the new data protection regulations which come into force in May this year. The main obvious effect of this is that we are required to have opt-in consent to hold personal data within our database to allow us to continue contacting you. For some of you who have joined the contacts list recently we have this but not a complete record. And some of you may not wish to receive emails from us again. So as we have done in the past, it is time for a tidy up of our mailing list. If you DO WISH to continue to receive monthly emails from Wark Farm, please can you complete the consent form here. Only email addresses collected on this form will remain in our contact list. We have also included space for you to complete your name and postal address. While the postal address is not strictly necessary for the regulations, it would be extremely helpful for the efficiency of our orders management and deliveries if you were able to complete your postal address and a contact phone number too and that as and when you place an order we will have all the details we require to make your delivery and not need to ask for it again. We hold a lot of addresses currently and my apologies for asking for them if we have been delivering to you for a decade and this seems a little superfluous; with more people working at the farm now I'm told that information needs to stored in other places than just my head. If you DO NOT wish to receive further emails from Wark Farm, you don't need to do anything and any contact details we currently hold will be deleted.

2. Starting from this month we are offering the option of collecting your order from Thistle Street Market in Aberdeen on the Second Saturday of each month. We have attended this market a few times now (sharing a stall with Louise's Farm Kitchen) selling pies and from this month will have fresh meat available too. We will always be able to offer Beef, Lamb, Bacon and Pies for collection at the market. Chicken and venison will continue only to be available from the farm, Banchory or Delivery for the present. I will let you know when this changes. Further details are on the order form.

3.We are continuing to refine our new ordering system and hope that mostly you are finding it more transparent and helpful. One or two people have asked if we can supply an itemised product list. At present we are not able to record each specific cut of meat with its price, only the product category (beef, lamb, venison etc.) with the individual pack price. I hope that will suit most people for now. Prices of orders are always based on the products put into your order bag, so you are not charged on what you order, only what we deliver (e.g. if an item has run out and is not included in your delivery). Please continue to let us have your feedback, and thank you to those of you who have done so so far.

Thanks for wading through that. If you're with me still.

So to this month's open days we have some good looking Belted Galloway beef with beautiful yellow, grass fed, marbling and the full range of Hebridean lamb, a little leaner this month as we reach the end of the winter and before spring has put in much of an appearance yet. We also have our usual range of bacon, the two sorts of pie and a limited amount of chicken. We are making progress with rearing more chickens but it will take a few months I'm afraid until the first batches become ready - more on that in future months.

We shall be at:

Thistle Street this Saturday, 14th April (10:00am - 3:00pm) as well as Tarland Producers Market (10am - 12pm),

We will be Open at the farm on Thursday 19th (10:30am - 4:30pm)

Delivering on Friday 20th

and will be at Banchory Farmers Market on Saturday 21st (9:00am - 1:00pm)

I'm off for a lie down