A FAMILY of farmers have cut out the middleman and opened their own on-site butchery.

An old milk parlour and cowshed at Court Farm in Upper Halling has been converted by the Lingham family into a new butcher's shop.

The conversion, which was carried out with funding from SEEDA and support from the cement company Lafarge, has enabled the farm to expand its meat sales operation to five days a week and employ a butcher. The farm produces beef lamb and venison and will sell meat from Tuesday to Saturday each week.

All the animals' feed is still grown on the farm, making the whole operation self-sufficient. Farmer Andrew Lingham said: "Building consumer confidence in locally produced foods is part of the reason in expanding the meat sales at Court Farm. The other motive is the fact that the supermarkets aren't paying the small to medium sized family farmers enough for their produce. So if farmers want to stay in livestock production they have to find ways of adding value to their produce."

The butchery specialises in selling home-produced beef, lamb and venison that goes into their speciality sausages and burgers. Locally produced pork, free range chicken and eggs are also sold. Beaney's, the Strood bakers, make pies, pasties and wholemeal bread from Court Farm produced meat and milling wheat, which are on sale in the butcher's.

Mr Lingham said he was very pleased with level of support for his new enterprise. He said: "These sorts of enterprises could be the salvation to many small and medium sized farms, while at the same time providing a unique product at extremely good value."