Rhug Estate's Sustainable Farm

Rhug Estate has been organic for 21 years and has the highest standards of animal welfare. Rhug are one of the few true farm to fork operations in the UK, their animals are bred on the Estate farm and fed on feed grown on the farm.

The Estate
Rhug Estate is run by a passionate team dedicated to the best organic practises. The estate is committed to an environmentally sustainable way of caring for the land under the organic system. The uniqueness of Rhug is the total control over the whole system from livestock in the field to the finished meat on the plate.

The animals living on Rhug Estate, live life as nature intended with minimal stress and the highest quality of life which is all monitored and certified organic by The Soil Association. This all helps rear happy animals, which produce the best meat.

There is no use of sprays or artificial fertiliser at the farm creating rich organic pastures for the herds to graze freely on.

The Estate is carbon positive which means they are contributing to a cleaner environment. When Lord Newborough took over the estate management from his father in 1998, it was his vision which shaped a wholly sustainable farming model, which includes high standards of animal welfare, and sustainable use of natural resources. Rhug won a ‘Footprint Award’ for their renewable heat and power generation.

Lord Newborough’s driving force is to continue to carry out the highest standards of Sustainable Farming to ensure a better and healthier world for future generations.

On top of the Footprint Award, Lord Newborough has won Farmer of the Year, Diversification Farmer of the Year and the prestigious Royal Warrant.

Award-Winning Beef
Rhug organic, award-winning, beef is sourced from their own Aberdeen Angus herd crossed with a Stabiliser bull. The herd of up to 1,000 cattle are born on Rhug’s coastal farm near Caernarfon and finished on the Estate.

The famous Aberdeen Angus breed is renowned for its quality and flavour due to high levels of marbling within the muscle.

Although primarily grass fed, the cows are given Rhug’s own grown organic cereals as a supplement at the finishing stage.

Rhug Estate's Meat
Rhug Estate have won many awards for their meat. Their non GM, low-stress system ensures a complete on-farm process resulting in one of the lowest food product miles in the industry, another secret to the tenderness, flavour and succulence of Rhug meat.

Many people buy organic food because they believe it tastes better. Rhug organic meat contains around 50% more beneficial omega-3 fatty acids, lower concentrations of saturated fats and overall nutritionally healthier than non-organic meat.

Their beef is aged for 35 days in a dry ageing chamber lined with Himalayan salt blocks, butchered, packed and dispatched on site and overall produced in accordance with Soil Association rules, one of the highest welfare standards in the UK.

Organic Free-Range Pork

The pork from Rhug Estate comes from Soil Association approved farms. The pigs are a mix of 50% Duroc, 25% Landrace and 25% Large White. This Doruc breed has at least 5% higher intra muscular fat (i.e. not visible within the muscle fibres) which results in more succulent, flavoursome meat.

The pigs are reared outside in individual huts and as soon as they are big enough, they can roam out onto clover rich pastures and are completely free-range. They lead a natural stress-free life with the ability to socialise with other pigs which they believe all contributes to the quality of the organic pork.
The pigs root naturally in the soil picking up minerals in the process.

Market Leading Sustainable Packaging
Rhug Estate has introduced sustainable packaging for the majority of its organic meat products. The introduction of new cardboard meat trays, which can be disposed of in a standard recycling bin, is the latest victory in the war against the use of single use plastic. As well as being made of recyclable card, their new meat cardboard trays improve the shelf life of our organic meat and gives the consumer an extra two days on the use-by date, helping to reduce food waste.