Menter Moch Cymru support helps pig farmer launch meat sales business 

When Ann Lewis sold the first cuts of meat from her Mochyn Mawr pig enterprise it marked an important moment for her.

With support from Menter Moch Cymru and her own vision and hard work, Ann had successfully launched a direct sales venture that added value to her outdoor pig business at Cathelyd Isaf Farm, a 50-acre holding nestling in a river valley below Craig-Cefn-Parc, near Swansea.

“Menter Moch Cymru have been absolutely brilliant, I have been really amazed at the help and support and how professional everyone has been,’’ she says.

Ann grew up at Cathelyd Isaf Farm but a successful career in the information technology sector lured her away from the area for many years, to work in Swindon and Northamptonshire, but in 2006 she returned to her childhood home.

“I always knew I would come back,’’ she admits.

Within a few short years, Ann’s parents sadly passed away and she decided to take on the running of the farm.

It had to pay its way so she set about stocking the farm, with cattle, sheep, hens – and with a herd of native breed pigs, run on an outdoor system with access to woodland to forage in.

Ann didn’t want to go down the route of modern pig production, with sows farrowing multiple times a year, so she opted for traditional, slow-growing breeds with a view to marketing meat direct to customers.

That is where Menter Moch Cymru stepped in.

This project is designed to support and develop the pig industry in Wales and Ann used it as a springboard to access support and knowledge to develop her business.

She had support to create a website, an online sales platform and logo and a £750 grant for marketing material.

She describes the digital marketing training she received as “invaluable’’. “I have a background in IT but I learned so much during those four sessions.’’

There was even support for product labelling. “Menter Moch Cymru hosted a webinar with a labelling expert, with advice such as making sure the labels are good enough to withstand freezer temperatures, things I wouldn’t have thought of. I even had my first batch of labels paid for from the funding I received,’’ says Ann.

Since she registered with Menter Moch Cymru she has attended eight training sessions on different topics.

Ann has also had an opportunity to see how other outdoor pig businesses run their systems thanks to a Menter Moch Cymru-funded tour of farms in Devon in March 2022.

Not only did she gain a wealth of valuable knowledge from the farms she visited but made contact with other pigs farmers in Wales who were participating in the study visit.

“There were pig farmers from every part of Wales on that visit, it brought us together and we have since kept in touch,’’ says Ann.

She is now considering introducing some of the ideas she picked up on that visit on her own farm.

“There was one farmer who was running his herd on fields of beet and another who was growing pumpkins on a manure heap, really interesting stuff.’’

As a direct result of that visit, she recently reseeded a field with a pig pasture seed mix incorporating forage rape, kale, stubble turnips, vetch and ryegrasses.

“I’m also thinking of growing pumpkins and squash and swede and turnips,’’ she explains.

Through Menter Moch Cymru Ann also received a fully-funded Herd Health Plan, an initiative designed to foster a close working relationship between farmers and veterinary surgeons.

“We are not a big commercial operation and our use of antibiotics is very limited because of the way I raise the pigs – we only use antibiotics when a pig is injured or ill – but it is comforting to have a herd health plan and the support of the vet and to get advice around issues like biosecurity,’’ says Ann.

She has thrown herself into developing her business and is proud of what she has created, so much so that she is now considering adding other meats to her range, including beef from her Dexter and Shorthorn cattle.

The Menter Moch Cymru project is funded by the Welsh Government Rural Communities – Rural Development Programme 2014 -2020, which is funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the Welsh Government.