Beef Focus: West of Ireland organic farm-to-fork business

Located on the shores of Lough Key, Co. Roscommon is Drumanilra Organic Farm owned by Liam and Justina Gavin.

The 300ac farm is divided between a home farm near Lough Key and the remainder of the land is located near Roscommon town.

The impressive family owned farm-to-fork operation sees all of the farm produce used in two restaurants owned by the family, one of which is Honestly Farm Kitchen in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim, and the other, by the same name, in Strandhill, Co. Sligo.

The restaurants’ menu dishes all feature ingredients grown or produced on the farm.

Limerick and Tipperary Organic Farmers’ Group recently paid a visit to the integrated organic farm-foodservice business and Agriland was in attendance at the farm visit.

The Limerick and Tipperary Organic Farmers Group on their recent visit to Drumanilra Organic Farm

Drumanilra Organic Farm is a mixed farm involved in multiple farming enterprises.

The farm business includes:

50 pedigree breeding Dexter cows and 80 Dexter cattle that are finished for beef on the farm each year;
80 organic lambs that are finished/year;
150 free-range pigs come to the farm to be finished over the course of the year;
200 laying hens producing organic eggs;
Six polytunnels and a market garden producing approximately 3.5t of salad crop/year.

All of the produce from the farm is sold in the family owned farm shops and restaurants and all animals are slaughtered and processed at Burns Farm Meats in Co. Sligo.

Organic beef

Cattle are housed for the winter in dry-bedded timber sheds. The feed passage of the shed is cleaned every three days and the bedded area is cleaned once/month. All dung is composted and spread on the land.

The farm aims to produce a finished Dexter animal with a liveweight of between 320-350kg and a carcass weight of between 160-180kg.

All beef is matured for a minimum of 21 days before it is used in the farm kitchens.

As well as the Dexter beef, a small amount of Angus beef is also supplied by a local organic farmer.

The farm

The are three members of staff on the farm. Orla is the full-time horticulturist and there are two part-time staff looking after livestock feeding and bedding.

Neighbouring organic farmer Andrew Chilton gave an overview of the logic behind the interesting enterprise.

He explained: “The Gavins run their farm and foodservice outlets very much in a business manner. The mission is to reconnect people with organic, sustainable food that is honestly grown both on the farm and on farms of like-minded people.

Sheds on the farm. Centre photo shows accommodation for pigs

“Within the business ethos, there is the concept of a co-operative and supporting other organic farmers as well as being a marketplace for organic farm produce.”

However, Andrew said that not everything needed for the shop can be produced on the farm.

Salads are grown in polytunnels on the farm

He said that every few weeks, pigs are taken from another free-range farm and are treated as organic for their final few weeks of finishing.

Adding to this, Drumanilra Organic Farm and Farm Kitchens’ people and processes manager, Jessica Warner said: “There is great opportunity for local suppliers to supply organic produce that is needed for the farm kitchen. We are always open to discussions with organic producers.”

It was explained that due to the continuity of supply issues, some foods cannot be sourced as organic and are instead free-range.

All foods that have to be imported for the farm kitchens “are organic or from like-minded producers”, Jessica explained.

Farm kitchen

The farm kitchen in Carrick-on-Shannon is located in the old KFC building at Rosebank Retail Park.

The impressive transformation of the building to a fast-food organic restaurant – fast meaning speed of time, and not quality of food – included a drive-through for people on the go, which has been a huge success, with the number of customers calling in a clear testament to this.