By Jack Bosworth, Director, FJ Bosworth & Sons. Published 8 January 2024.
Happy New Year. I hope everyone is well and had a good Christmas.
Things have been as busy as ever on the farm, and our newest members of the team, Ed, Jack and Simon, have all settled in really well. Bringing the right people in is one of the most important things we do, and it is genuinely good to start a new year on the front foot.
A sale that meant a lot
Numbers coming through the unit have been very good over the last few months. That has resulted in some sales at 35 kg average to another producer.
The feedback on the first 450 pigs was very strong. What was particularly pleasing was that such a large outfit, producing a lot of pigs themselves, specifically noted how healthy our pigs are. That kind of feedback, from people who see thousands of animals across multiple suppliers, is the most valuable kind you can get.
We will be selling a similar number to them again shortly.
Breeding and finishing KPIs (last six months)
These are our headline numbers from the last six months on the unit:
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Weaned per sow per year | 32.5 |
| Litters per sow per year | 2.35 |
| Conception rate | 88 per cent |
| Wasted days per litter | 13.9 |
| Pre-weaning mortality | 5.00 per cent |
| Rearing herd mortality | 2.06 per cent |
| Feeding herd mortality | 1.13 per cent |
| Feed conversion ratio (wean to finish) | 2.57 kg |
These are figures the team can be proud of, and they reflect a lot of patient work on the breeding herd, the parity 2 feed plan, the gilt management programme, and the overall environment we are housing the pigs in.
Off the farm this month
It will be nice to get a few days off the farm this month.
- Next week I am off to Yorkshire, having very kindly been asked to speak to Otley Pig Club about our business.
- At the end of January I am off to the Netherlands to visit a couple of pig units, some research facilities and a feed mill.
The Dutch trip in particular should be eye-opening. It will be interesting to hear what farmers out there are doing in response to the plans to halve emissions, and how it is affecting both the present and the future of their businesses.
I will always remember being shocked on a previous visit to the Netherlands. I was speaking to a producer about how much value pig slurry gives us, while he was having to pay to have his taken away. That tells you something about how differently different countries are setting the rules for the same product.
Coming up on the farm
Plenty on between now and spring:
- Multiple training courses booked in for new starters, plus refresher training for others.
- Some dry weather, hopefully, so we can get overdue land work done.
- Improvements to some sheds, including new lighting.
- Some interesting conversations with our local planning department, following the news that our application for the butchery has been recommended for refusal.
That last one stings. It feels to me like the government wants farmers to diversify rather than to be subsidised for certain farming activities, but then when we actually try to make that transition it is made a lot more difficult and costly than it ever should be. The on-farm butchery is exactly the kind of project that ticks every box on food miles, traceability, supporting local supply chains and improving producer resilience. To be recommended for refusal feels like the wrong message at the wrong time.
We will see where it goes from here.
Editor’s note (May 2026)
The butchery planning case mentioned in this article was the moment our route forward changed. Rather than continuing to push for on-farm butchery against the local planning position, in 2024 FJ Bosworth & Sons acquired Procters Sausages, an established sausage maker based in Ipswich. That acquisition completed the farm-to-fork model Jack had been building towards across his earlier articles, and meant pork from our herd could be processed into a recognised, well-loved product under an existing trade and consumer brand.
In the same year, the farm 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.
You can read more on the Our Pork section of this site, or visit procters-sausages.co.uk.
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.
Fourth-generation farmer at Spains Hall, Willingale. Runs the contracting team and writes most of what appears here.