Ryeland hogget mince box — frozen from fresh.

This one's built for real cooking rather than special occasions. Two shoulder joints for slow roasting, four packs of mince for everything else, and a couple of steaks for when you want tea on the table in ten minutes. It's a fortnight of proper dinners out of one box.

Hogget is sheep meat that's been given time. Ours are Ryelands — a rare native breed — raised on Derbyshire grass through two full summers, so they come to us at one to two years old. That extra time is the whole point. The flavour is richer and deeper than lamb, without ever going as strong as mutton. If you've only ever eaten spring lamb, this will surprise you.

The shoulders are the stars. Rub one, cover it, put it in low for four or five hours and leave it alone — it'll pull apart with a spoon. The mince does the everyday work: shepherd's pie, ragù, koftas, burgers, a proper chilli. And the steaks are there for the night you can't face cooking.

What's in the box:

- Shoulder joints x 2 (approx. 1kg each)

- Mince x 4 packs (500g each)

- Hogget steaks x 2

Around 4.5kg in total, all vacuum packed and labelled, all from the same animal.

HOW OUR SHEEP LIVE

They were born here and they never left. Two summers out on our Derbyshire grass, in a flock, with their mothers for the first part of it and lambs of their own coming up behind them. Out in all weathers, in off the hill when the weather turns properly.

Grass and nothing else. No grain, no concentrates, no bought-in feed of any kind — just what grows in these fields and the time to eat it. That's the whole system, and it's why they take two years instead of a few months.

Nothing about that is fast. A supermarket lamb is killed at a few months old because that's what the economics demand. Ours take twice as long, eat nothing we've had to buy in, and taste like something. We think that's the better trade.

AND HOW THEY DIED

We don't dress this part up, because we think you'd rather we didn't.

When the time comes, we load them ourselves and drive them to a small local abattoir about ten miles down the road. No market. No haulier. No collection lorry, no standing about in a strange pen overnight, no long motorway journey with animals that have never been off this farm. Ten miles, in the morning, in a trailer they've seen before, handled by the people who have fed them every day of their lives.

It is the last thing we do for them and we do it properly. It costs us more and it takes a whole morning, and we would not do it any other way.

Our animals are stunned before slaughter, so they are unconscious and know nothing about it. That means this is not halal or kosher meat. People ask, so we'd rather say it plainly than leave you guessing.

Frozen from fresh. This box is prepared from our hogget and frozen from fresh, sealing in all that flavour and quality — so it's ready in your freezer whenever you need it. Just defrost what you'd like, when you'd like it.

Getting it to you

Collection from the farm is free — and it's our favourite way to do it. We'll ring you when your order is ready, so please wait to hear from us rather than setting off. We're a small family farm and every order is put together individually.

Local delivery (S postcodes) £3.50. Regional delivery £8. Further afield, this box qualifies for our extended delivery at £15 — we bring it out to you ourselves.