The pork we sell starts in our own fields and ends on a plate. Crops grown here, grain milled here, pigs fed here, manure returned here, pork sent on to nearby processing facilities and into Procter's Sausages. The detail behind how the model works.
Most British pork is produced in a linear supply chain. Feed is sourced and blended by specialist compounders, often using imported ingredients. It is delivered by lorry to the farm. The pigs eat it. The pork goes off to processing somewhere else, and the manure becomes a waste-management problem rather than a nutrient. It works, it is efficient on capital, and it is the way the industry is largely set up. We do it differently.
What follows is the detail behind the circular model that earned us the National Pig Awards Sustainable Farming Award in 2024. Six stages, in the order they happen. Each one is described as honestly as we can: what we actually do, why we do it that way, and what the trade-offs are. This is not a marketing diagram; it is the operation.
Vertical sequence, image opposite content. The thread running down the page links each stage to the next, and loops back from the plate to the soil. Stage 5 (processing) runs typographically: the work happens off-site at someone else's facility, and a generic transport shot does not earn its place.
We grow arable crops across 330 hectares at and around Spains Hall in Willingale, Essex. The rotation is conventional in mix (cereals primarily, with the usual break crops and stewardship areas), but the destination of the grain is unusual: most of the cereal harvested here are kept on the farm rather than sold on the open market.
The grain is stored on the farm after harvest and milled on-site through the year as the pigs need it. The mill is mainly powered by solar-generated electricity from panels installed on the farm, which means the electricity that turns the grain into feed is also produced here. The milling operation runs through the working day, when the solar is generating.
Our pigs are housed in modern indoor facilities and fed primarily on the feed milled on-site. Alongside our own cereals, we bring in other bulk ingredients such as soya, rapemeal and maltings to blend a balanced diet, together with the minerals and vitamins that pigs need at different life stages (we are honest that not everything can be produced on the farm). Even so, the bulk of what they eat comes from the grain grown in the fields visible from the housing.
Pig manure is collected, stored, and applied back to the arable land using our contracting team's slurry equipment. The nutrients that the previous year's crop produced (taken up by the pigs through the feed) are returned to the next year's crop directly. Bagged fertiliser is still applied where the crop needs it (our contracting team applies it for other farmers across Essex as well, with working widths up to 24m), but the contribution from the pigs reduces the gap.
Pigs leave the farm for nearby processing facilities when they reach the right weight and condition. “Nearby” is genuinely meaningful: keeping the journey short reduces stress on the animals and reduces the food miles attached to the eventual product. The processors we work with are Red Tractor assured, which means the welfare and traceability standards that started in the housing continue through to the end of the supply chain.
Some of our pork is then processed into Procter's Sausages, the consumer brand we acquired in 2024, and supplied to trade and hospitality customers through the Procter's team in Ipswich. Most of the pork goes to direct trade customers and butchers; the rest of it goes through Procter's' production and ends up in the range of sausages, patties and related products that Procter's has built its reputation on for decades.
The model described above is what the National Pig Awards judges looked at when they gave us the Sustainable Farming Award in 2024. We did not win it for a specific project or a specific initiative; we won it for the way the farm runs end to end. The recognition matters because it independently validates that the model holds up under scrutiny.
Our carbon audit has now been completed for a second time, and we are comparing this data with other farming businesses that are also part of AHDB's Environmental Baselining Pilot. This moves the sustainability picture from directional confidence to proper measurement. We are also working on telling the model better, particularly to the people who buy Procter's product and to the trade customers who depend on the supply. The model itself is largely settled, but its measurement, its communication, and the supporting infrastructure (the contracting fleet, the mill, the housing) are continuous projects.
Trade buyers, journalists, award organisers, and customers curious about how their food is produced are all welcome to get in touch. The route is the same as any other enquiry.
