Unboxing the Dunwood Farm meat box

I’m back! I’ve been in and out of the country and jobs and so on, but finally I have settled down with a new meat box waiting to be revealed and consumed. I’m excited to announce that my eighth meat box is from Dunwood Farm, a small family business from Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. Owned by Peter and Gwyneth Pearson, it was their son Will who contacted me out of the blue one day to ask for some thoughts from a customer’s point of view. One thing led to another and, well, I am now the proud owner of a beef tasting box, kindly gifted by the Pearsons. We had some problems with the courier (who failed to deliver and therefore spoiled the meat by leaving it out for more than 48 hours), and I was surprised and delighted when Will personally delivered a new box to my doorstep. Now THAT’S good customer service.

Dunwood Farm specialises in free range Longhorn and Aberdeen Angus beef, all of which is hung for at least 28 days before butchering. They are also branching into piggy products, but most intriguingly they also sell cow hide rugs, a by product of their beef of course. I know people have a love hate thing about cow hide, but I’ve always had a penchant for them and they make for really gorgeous floor coverings.

As a happy coincidence, Dunwood Farm were featured in the Independent’s list of top 10 meat and fish boxes this week – a huge accolade for them, so well done .

The Dunwood Farm Beef Taster Box

• Berkshire pork loin roast – big
• Aberdeen Angus stewing steak x 2
• Longhorn minute steaks
• Longhorn mince
• Aberdeen Angus beef burgers
• Aberdeen Angus beef shin

The best thing about this delivery is that everything was presented with a lovely personal touch – fresh slabs of meat in brown paper packages tied up with string (*singing* these are a few of my favourite things…), and an aromatic sprig of rosemary to greet you as you open the box. I do think that is one thing meat box suppliers could think about – presentation! (NB the first image is of the first box of spoiled meat i got – it had to be thrown away ).

There was no weight on my packets of meat, so I’ll have to do some guess work when cooking. The pork loin looks very exciting, it’s huge and hefty – perhaps it could be stuffed and roasted? The shin is also a new thing for me – I expect I could slow cook it to release that gelatinous goodness that would work well in a Chinese stew.

Have you got any recipe suggestions? Share them below!

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