Spek & BoonenSPEK & BOONEN

If you raise the animals

We buy whole animals and cut them here. Today that's a handful of family farms and a few people grazing nature reserves. We can name every one. There's room for more. If you raise cattle, sheep, pigs or poultry the way it's set out below, I'd like to hear from you.

We want to help nudge farming toward something that can last: animals on grass, old breeds given time to grow, and whole animals bought instead of picked over for the best cuts.

There isn't much of this meat in Brussels. Most of it goes to a few restaurants, or gets sold abroad.

One shop can't change farming on its own. But if we keep buying, and pay for the whole animal instead of only the cuts that sell easily, it helps, and more of it has a chance of staying in the city.

This isn't about a label. If a pig is going to be out all winter, it has to be an old, tough breed. A modern one would just die in the cold. Cattle on grass grow slowly, so they're older by the time they're ready. A decent chicken can't be one of the fast breeds killed at six weeks. Farm like this and most of the rest of the farm has to change with it.

Beef and lamb

Grass their whole life, on old hardy breeds.

  • Grass and forage their whole life, never grain. Grass-fed on its own doesn't mean much; you can call an animal grass-fed and still finish it on grain. We mean grass the whole way.
  • Grass doesn't put on weight as fast as grain, so it takes longer, usually a couple of years, well past a grain-fed animal.
  • Our beef is Galloway. It's a native breed, stays out through winter, and grazes rough ground and nature reserves that need grazing to keep them open.

Pork

Outside all year, which only a tough old breed can manage.

  • Pigs outside the whole year, with wooden huts, never in stables. To get through a Belgian winter outdoors a pig has to be an old, hardy breed. A modern one, bred for a warm shed, wouldn't make it. That one decision changes the animal: it grows slower and carries more fat to keep warm.
  • When the pigs are moved, the group stays together. They live in families, and we keep it that way.
  • The best of it is pigs fattening outside on acorns and whatever grows, few enough that the land can feed them. Not much of that is possible here, but it's what we're aiming at.

Chicken

Slow breeds, given time to grow up.

  • Slow-growing breeds, not the fast hybrids that reach slaughter weight in about forty days. A proper bird needs more than twice that long. You can't just raise a fast hybrid slowly; it grows quicker than its legs and heart can keep up.
  • Small flocks, out on grass in the daytime from a few weeks old, fed mostly on grain.

Whatever the animal

Some things go for all of them.

  • No routine antibiotics. You treat an animal that's ill; you don't medicate the whole group as standard.
  • Born and raised on one farm where we can, and slaughtered close by, so it's a short trip and not hours in a lorry.
  • The young are raised by their mothers and weaned when they're ready, not taken off early.

Email me and tell me about your animals: what breed, how they're fed and kept, and where you are. I read every message myself.

Get in touch