Properly free range meat stars at Great Taste, as Pipers Farm lands four awards

Devon-based online butcher, Pipers Farm is celebrating a healthy haul of awards today as the Great Taste results are announced, taking home a highly coveted 3-star award for its Saddleback Neck Steak, alongside three other accolades. Described by the judges as “beautifully soft, with full frontal flavour”, the pork steaks are one of only 192 food and drink products to be named in this year’s 3-star list, out of over 12,600 entries.

Other Great Taste stars have gone to products across the farm, with a 2-star rating awarded to the Greig family’s Properly Free Range Duck, which spends its life roaming amongst lush Devon pasture, eating a natural diet of forage and whole grains. Pipers Farm’s Properly Free Range Chicken, a bird that lives twice the length of most others, scooped a 1-star, while its Grass Fed Red Ruby Oxtail also took a 1-star, heralding the well-deserved comeback of this rich, gelatinous, nutritious and excellent value cut of meat.

It was the pork that was picked out for the highest praise though, described by the Great Taste judges as a “piggy steak with a gentle texture and gamey notes on the nose and at the end, a really delicious thing”. The panel made note of the Saddleback Neck Steak’s “fantastic depth of flavour” and “great steak-like texture with porky complexity”, agreeing that “you can tell the time that has gone into the hanging” as they awarded the product Great Taste’s highest star rating.

Peter Greig, founder of Pipers Farm, explains:

“We’re motivated by many things at Pipers Farm, from animal welfare and sustainable land management to the future of family run farms, but above all else our meat needs to taste fantastic. Pipers Farm meat must be a joy to eat in order to showcase the benefits of farming in harmony with nature, so we’re delighted to have this massive stamp of approval from Great Taste. I’m always pleased to see less high profile cuts, like our Red Ruby Oxtail, getting their moment in the spotlight and we know that 3-star awards are like gold dust, so we’re over the moon with that one. Our Saddleback pigs are reared by the Snell family, who have recently revitalised their farm through the re-introduction of traditional farming practices – and everyone is winning. The family is happy, the pigs are properly farrow and live outside for their entire lives and the land is benefiting into the bargain. Last and by no means least, we’ve also got some great tasting and nutritious meat for our families to enjoy.”

Pipers Farm’s Saddleback Neck Steak, Properly Free Range Duck, Properly Free Range Chicken and Grass Fed Red Ruby Oxtail are all available to order from www.pipersfarm.com.