By Jack Bosworth, Director, FJ Bosworth & Sons. Published 15 February 2023.

I hope everyone is well.

It has been a busy start to 2023 on the farm. In my optimistic mind, it feels as if we are just starting our bid to recover from what has been an absolutely dire time financially for the pig enterprise.

The control problem

I have mentioned this before, but the lack of control we have over the end market for our pigs is a frustration that continues to grow. It is one that Dad and I are now actively looking to solve, in our own ways, for the short, medium and long-term resilience of our family farming business.

Each of us is taking a different angle.

  • Dad is busy working away at trying to get amendments to the pricing strategy that generates the base price we are paid from. It is too easily manipulated by big market players, which has left independent producers like us with a price that has been below par for far too long. This ties directly into the DEFRA supply chain review, a consultation that pig farmers are desperate to see proper answers from. I know plenty of producers still weighing up whether it is viable to stay in the business at all.
  • My side of the work is looking further down the chain. I am continuing to plan our next steps into setting up our own butchery on the farm, with outlets that include local residents, hospitality, retail, and hopefully even markets in London. We are well placed for that, sitting just 35 miles from the city centre.

These are two different responses to the same problem: we want more control over how our pigs are valued, both at the start of the chain and at the end of it.

Smithfield, before two become three

As I am writing this, I am sitting on the tube heading into London for a night away from the farm with Amy for the last time before two of us become three. Baby Bosworth is due in the middle of March.

Much to Amy’s delight, on the agenda is an early start to Smithfield Market before breakfast, and then off to a farmers’ market. I know what you are all thinking. I sure know how to live.

For me, this is part of the research. If we are going to do our own butchery properly, then I want to see how the people doing this well at scale, and at small scale, actually operate.

Editor’s note (May 2026)

This article is one of the early markers of what eventually became Procters Sausages joining the family. Rather than building a butchery on the farm from scratch, in 2024 FJ Bosworth & Sons acquired Procters Sausages, an established sausage maker, completing the farm-to-fork chain Jack describes here. You can read more on the Our Pork section of this site, or visit procters-sausages.co.uk.

In the same year, FJ Bosworth & Sons won the National Pig Awards Sustainable Farming Award 2024, and was a finalist for both National Pig Awards Pig Producer of the Year 2024 and Farmers Weekly Mixed Farm of the Year 2024.

About the author

Jack Bosworth is a fourth-generation farmer and Director of FJ Bosworth & Sons, an arable and pig farming business at Spains Hall, Willingale, Essex. The farm has been in the family since 1919, and Jack farms alongside his father Stuart Bosworth, who was named Farmers Weekly Pig Farmer of the Year in 2011. The business is Red Tractor assured and runs an integrated farm-to-fork model, with home-grown cereals milled on site using solar-generated electricity.

You can follow Jack’s articles on fjbosworth.com, or get in touch via the WhatsApp link on the site.

Written by Jack Bosworth

Fourth-generation farmer at Spains Hall, Willingale. Runs the contracting team and writes most of what appears here.