Local meat sourcing: The Queens Arms rears its own livestock

"Children don't know where meat comes from," says licensee Marilyn Ruberry. "They think milk comes out of a canister, they don't know bacon is from a pig - and it's scary. I mean, us country folk do but in the cities they don't."

Marilyn became concerned that her four grandchildren might grow up with a similar disconnection between the land and their plate. So she and her family decided to start rearing livestock and serve the meat at their pub, the Queens Arms in Constantine, Cornwall.

However, Marilyn had a bit of a head start having grown up on a farm in Dorset as "a farmer's daughter, basically". She has always reared her own livestock on a smaller scale but stopped when she and her family took over the pub around four-and-a-half years ago.

She says she is motivated by a kind of pride. "I get far more satisfaction from selling that meat from my smallholding than from buying it elsewhere," she explains.

"It's a natural product we have - we're not interested in fattening the pigs up fast. It all grows at its own pace and the customers do notice a difference. A lot of the older people say it tastes just like it used to because a lot of the meat today has water injected into it."

Shop local

The majority of the meat on the menu at the Punch Taverns-owned pub is sourced from Marilyn's smallholding but occasionally produce is bought in from local suppliers. However, she says she would never buy meat that had been imported and "wouldn't sell anything other than Cornish".

The pigs are sourced from local farmer Michael Dunstan, who is based two miles away, and the killing and processing of the meat is done at the Prevarthens slaughterhouse three miles away. Lambs come from a farm just two fields away from the pub.

While other licensees might not have the background and know-how to replicate the Queens Arms model, Marilyn says they should at least be sourcing from nearby farms.

"I am a firm believer that you look after your local farmers," she adds.

She argues that rearing their own animals for slaughter isn't any more expensive than buying good quality meat as they use the whole animal.

"An old farmer once said the only bit on a pig you can't use is the grunt," says Marilyn. "The bits that I don't like - the shoulder of pork, say - we have that made into sausages or pork mince."

Breeds

Across two six-acre sites Marilyn looks after a herd of Dexter Beef cattle, British Saddleback pigs, hens and orphan lambs, which would otherwise die without hand rearing. Does she ever get sentimental about the animals?

"No, I don't feel sad because the breeding stock, the ones that we decide to keep we keep. I won't eat them," says Marilyn.

"The ones that are going to be eaten don't get names. Well not proper names, only things like Streaky Bacon. It was something we were taught as kids at home. It's distancing ourselves from it, I suppose."

However, she does say that spending time on the farm with the animals gives her time to recharge from working in the busy pub.

"As well as taking care of the menu it's a chill-out zone," she says.