Why Frozen?

Glad you asked! We have several reasons for choosing to freeze our meat.

Freezing has been used for hundreds of years globally to naturally preserve food.

Firstly, frozen food is still fresh! Buying our frozen meat may be fresher than you can buy fresh elsewhere. Produce in supermarkets or other stores may have been in transit and on shelves for days and then is stored in your fridge for even longer. We use a ‘blast chiller’, which brings our meat from fresh to frozen much faster than a conventional freezer - generally less than 2 hours! This locks in all the quality and nutrients, so when you defrost, it’s like it is just off the butcher’s block! Our blast chiller will also prevent ‘freezer burn’, which you can read more about below.

Freezing food allows us to eat seasonally all year round. As a smaller family farm, we don’t have tens of animals ‘ready’ every week to be butchered. We let the animal develop naturally until it’s prime to ensure quality and taste. We don’t schedule animals ahead of time - we look at each animal individually. We wait until they are ready naturally. This means our supply can be sporadic at times, but we can blast chill and freeze, ensuring it is fresh for whenever you are ready.

A study by WRAP found that 4.5m tonnes of food is wasted every year in the UK, and we think that is too much. Farmers across the UK are pushing their land to meet the demands of the supermarkets, driven by the demands of us as consumers, only for it to be thrown away. By choosing frozen food, you can help reduce this ginormous waste, because you can enjoy much longer dates with no deterioration in quality over months, defrosting only what you need and when you need it.

Freezing does not require any additives, chemicals or salt to maintain quality and preserve the food. We think you should be able to read and understand every ingredient in our food! We love feeding our family cleaner meals.

But, as a working family, we love the convenience of freezing meat. Stock up your freezer and have a selection of quality meats ready when you need them. Less unnecessary trips to the shop after work for something for dinner! Just defrost when you need it. No more meat getting pushed to the back of the fridge and forgotten about or getting caught out with a ‘best before’ date!

WHAT ABOUT 'FREEZER BURN’?

Freezer burn occurs when air gets into the food and oxygen replaces moisture. It’s not particularly pleasant, but the food is still safe to eat. Here at Fed & Bred, we avoid it in our equipment and storage and take all steps to avoid it happening in your freezer too. You will never receive a piece of meat from us with freezer burn!

Firstly, we use a vacuum sealer to remove all air from the meat. Then, we use a blast chiller. This takes the meat from fridge temperature to -18oC in two-four hours! This gives practically no time for moisture to be replaced with oxygen. And, because the vacuum sealer removed the air from the packet, there will be no unnecessary oxygen.

Your household freezer will take 12-48 hours to freeze meat completely, depending on the size of meat and how full your freezer is etc, giving more time for freezer burn to occur.

Once frozen, each portion is put into an industrial freezer with a temperature below -18oC at all times.

Your order will arrive frozen, so pop it in your freezer as soon as you can to enjoy the best quality and taste!