Gate to plate
For Henry Brosi, executive chef at London's Dorchester hotel, traceability of ingredients is everything. So the opportunity to visit a farm in Aberdeenshire to witness at first hand the origins of the beef he serves was a chance not to be missed.
The trip arose from Brosi's involvement in the 2001 Caterer & Hotelkeeper Chef Conference, to be held at the Dorchester hotel on 19 March, organised in association with British Meat. At the conference dinner, Brosi will cook a beef main course while Britain's newest holder of three Michelin stars, Gordon Ramsay, and US maestro Charlie Trotter will split responsibility for the starter and dessert sections.
Life for 90% of the beef served at the Dorchester begins on one of several hundred farms throughout Scotland, from the Orkney Islands in the north to the central plains in the south. The farms are all independent members of the farming co-operative, the ANM Group, as is Scotch Premier Meat, which supplies Brosi's north London butcher, CST.
"Like fine wine, Champagne and malt whisky, Scotch premier beef is a connoisseur's product," says Scotch Premier Meat managing director Raymond Wight. "It has the best quality, taste and tenderness in the world."
The company prides itself in supplying high-street and catering butchers with high-quality, fully traceable meat and owns a state-of-the-art processing and boning plant in Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, to which all ANM farms send their meat for slaughter.
The farms are regularly inspected to ensure the animals are being reared naturally and humanely. "We only take steers and heifers - we don't want bulls, as the meat would be too tough," says Wight. "The breed of the animal is not the major concern - far more important is ensuring that the animal has a good fat cover and marbling and is reared on a traditional, natural feed to ensure the best flavour. Aberdeen Angus has become a good marketing name, but it is not necessarily the best."
What does have a significant impact on the final product is the way the animal lives its life, says Wight. A happy beast will produce a superior cut of meat. "Animals should enjoy a stress-free life, from the farms all the way through to the final process at the abattoir."
Wight welcomed the chance to show Brosi around Rorandle Farm at Monymusk, 22 miles east of Aberdeen. "Chefs who come to the area and see how the cattle are bred and fed gain a better understanding of the beef they serve, which can only be beneficial to their cooking," says Wight. "It is important that there is a partnership between the chef and the farm."
Together with John Gray, business development director at the Meat and Livestock Commission, the two were given a personal tour of the 400-acre family-run farm. Farmers John and Linda Sim - helped by his 72-year-old father, Sandy - have a herd of 150 breeding cows, 40 heifers (which will be sold for slaughter at 15-20 months) and 110 calves (to be sold on to another farmer at 12 months).
During the winter the cattle are fed on a mixture of silage and barley, and in summer they graze on the farm's rich pastures. Brosi is enormously impressed by the care the Sims take of their animals. "These cattle are very well looked after," he says. "They have plenty of space to move around, they are clean and they are well fed."
Like all beef farmers throughout the UK, the Sims' income has dropped significantly since the BSE crisis. Although prices have picked up from a low point of £1.70 to about £1.80/kg for a young heifer, they still have some way to go before achieving the pre-BSE price of £2.40/kg.
Now, for every calf born in Britain, a registration certificate has to be filled in and sent to British Cattle Movement Services (BCMS) in Workington, Cumbria. For each animal a "passport" is then issued, which will remain with it until its death, when the document is sent back to BCMS.
Details recorded on the passport include the animal's date of birth, sex, breed, tag number (the number recorded on its ear tag, which is fixed at birth) and its mother's tag number. If the animal is sold, the date of the move will be added and the BCMS informed. The tag number is also recorded on every carcass and every cut of meat after slaughter.
"The system ensures that Britain's beef industry now has extremely stringent standards and vetting procedures," says Gray. "We recognised that we had a problem and have thoroughly dealt with it. The rest of Europe now needs to match our control standards."
The Sims' heifers are sold to Scotch Premier Meat at 15-20 months old, at a weight of about 500kg (265-285kg carcass weight). About 1,000 cattle from 150 farms pass through the Inverurie abattoir each week, slaughtered by a stress-free electrocution method. Slaughter will take place only if each animal is accompanied by a valid passport that ensures it is less than 30 months old.
Every stage of the processing system is scrutinised by meat hygiene inspectors and veterinary inspectors, and carcasses are chilled for a couple of days before being butchered on site or dispatched to butchers throughout the UK. The Dorchester's beef is transported to CST, where it is hung on the bone for 21-28 days. After the meat is butchered and delivered to the Dorchester, it is kept for a further two to three weeks to tenderise and improve the flavour further.
After his trip to Scotland, Brosi is satisfied he is consistently buying the very best quality beef for the Dorchester. Now he is looking forward to serving it to 400 leading members of the chef fraternity at the Chef Conference dinner. His proposed dish is simple - a fillet of beef with a shallot confit, fondant potatoes, wild mushrooms, seasonal vegetables and a Rully red wine sauce - allowing the quality of the main ingredient to speak for itself.
