“At Swan’s we refer to food metres not food miles” – that’s the environmental ethos that has helped fuel a farm-to-fork transformation at a north Wales butchery business and earned the recognition of a nomination for a prestigious UK-wide industry innovation award.

“We believe that in striving to produce the best possible quality meat for our customers, we must start by providing the right sort of food for the near 150 beef cattle and 100 pigs reared here at Swan’s Farm Shop," said 26-year-old Ed Swan, who works in the business with father and mother Clive and Gail.

“Going forward, we want to increase our production of sustainable beef with the best eating quality while meeting environmental targets. So we planted new herbal mix grass with a crop of sunflowers in one of our three, six-acre fields around the farm shop.”

The third generation family farm at Treuddyn near Mold has added sunflowers, wildflowers, phacelia and multispecies (herbal) grass grows to the staples of wheat, barley, silage, hay, kale and turnips to feed the livestock.

“It provides both a rich source of food for the animals and also brings the local public closer to us because we opened up pick-your-own sunflowers during lockdown and had a really great response, with schools visiting the new outdoor activity.”

He said he thought there was a misplaced idea about farmers that “we don’t want the public around. We want the public here to see a transparent process with the best welfare standards. We’re now considering going further, to a ‘farm park’ with open days and further school visits,” said Ed.

This has led to Swan’s Farm Shop being nominated for Innovation of the Year at the Butcher’s Shop of the Year awards to be held at the Farm and Deli Show at the NEC Birmingham on April 26, sponsored by a range of industry bodies including Hybu Cig Cymru – Meat Promotion Wales (HCC) which also supports independent businesses through its Welsh Lamb and Welsh Beef Butchers’ Club.

There is a history of innovation at Swan’s Farm Shop. It came about as a reaction to the difficulties experienced during the foot and mouth crisis when the family realised the need to diversify and that progressive view has continued over the last twenty years as the business grew. They have added a Farm Trail for customers to enjoy. And there’s more to come.

“The sunflower experiment has proved a great success; it is a perfect symbiotic relationship between tourism, food production and environmental progression. We will now rotate it through the three other fields and look forward to welcoming the public back each year,” said Ed.

HCC market development manager Rhys Llywelyn said: “In recent times we’ve been tailoring the support we offer Welsh butchery businesses through our Butchers’ Club, to include materials on sustainability and support with marketing and online selling.

“Membership is open to all shops that stock PGI Welsh Lamb and PGI Welsh Beef, and it’s great to see so many Welsh businesses nominated for the Butchers’ Shop of the Year Awards in 2022.”