Porc Plein Air, certified
Our whole pig carcasses come from PQA's Porc Plein Air scheme (Porcs Qualité Ardenne), a Walloon quality programme that has gathered farms around the Ardennes since the 1990s. As far as we know, we are the only butcher shop in Belgium working with this specific certificate.
The specification requires year-round outdoor access: the pigs live on grass with natural shelters rather than concrete pens. Breeds grow more slowly than industrial hybrids, feed is mostly cereals from Belgian soil, and slaughter age is well above conventional rearing.
Audits are run by Promag, an independent Walloon certifier for agriculture. Bjorn keeps the paper certificate in the shop: literally a document with PQA and Promag stamps and the farmer's name on it. The scheme, the farmer and the annual audits are all publicly searchable through PQA.
For the popular cuts that whole carcasses alone cannot supply (spider steak (araignée), brain, trotters and ribs) we top up through the Porc Fermier scheme from the same PQA, also audited by Promag. See the separate Fermier page for the details.
Read the official conditions at PQA→Drop in. Bjorn will gladly walk you through it in person.
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