A Week on the Estate: Winter Approaches, COP26 & Cromwell’s Christmas

If you’re a fan of our Lincoln Red beef – or if you’ve yet to discover it – we’re offering a jaw-dropping 50% off our Variety Beef Box. This box can be bagged at the incredibly low, click & collect price of £30 until Sunday 7^th November, for collection from South Ormsby Estate on 22^nd December. This box normally retails at £65 and delivery and other discounts aren’t available with this offer.

Packed with 2.8kg of ethically farmed, grass-fed Lincoln Red beef, this bargain box is a fine introduction to some of the best beef you’ll ever taste. Each box will make up to five meals for two people and includes roasting joints, minute steaks, diced beef and mince. Click HERE to grab a bargain. Keep an eye on our social media for more mouth-watering offers on fine, sustainable food and drink to grace your festive dinner table.

Finally, the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) got underway in Glasgow this week. As the world’s leaders gathered to tackle climate change, we took stock of what we’ve been doing to mitigate global warming, improve biodiversity and create a sustainable rural economy right here in the heart of the Lincolnshire Wolds. Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve achieved so far:

• South Ormsby Estate will be in-conversion to organic status for animal and arable produce throughout 2022 with a view to being fully organic by the end of that year.
• We are proud to be accredited by the Pasture for Life Association and we apply the principles of regenerative agriculture. Our Lincoln Red herd eats only grass and conserved grass grown at South Ormsby Estate. Our wild field margins and hedgerows are good news for biodiversity, creating a haven for all manner of birds, bugs and mammals.

• Modern agriculture took its toll on hedgerows. According to estate records, we had 170 fields in 1888 and 96 by 2018. We’re working hard to reverse this trend – in 2019 and 2020 we planted 4km of hedgerows. We’re progressively replacing fencing with hedgerows that will serve as wildlife corridors, both hosting and spreading biodiversity.
• We embrace the farm-to-fork guarantee by ensuring that all our beef is butchered and packed 27-miles from South Ormsby Estate to minimise food miles. We also insulate our meat in transit with biodegradable sheep’s wool.
• We switched South Ormsby Hall from a fuel-oil boiler to a biomass heating system. In the winter of 2018-19, the Hall’s boiler guzzled 14,331 litres of fuel oil. From the winter of 2019-20 onwards, our biomass boiler let us turn renewable fuel sources into reliable heat. We subsequently widened our efficiency programme so that no fuel-oil is used on the estate at all.
• We invested heavily in the Estate’s rental properties to drastically reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and increase their energy efficiency. We took stock of our Edwardian cottages, which typically had minimal insulation, oil-fired heating and an EPC rating of ‘F’. We reimagined these homes, giving them state-of-the-art insulation, ground-source heating, EV charging points and much more, and making them warm, efficient and fit for the 21st-century with an EPC score of ‘C’ or better.
• We grow our own fresh produce in the Hall’s Walled Garden, and we’ve helped establish community vegetable plots with the help of hard-working local volunteers.
• We’ve been maintaining and improving drainage across the Estate to make mitigate the effects of unusually wet weather.

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