Farmer Profiles

Roy Loud

Roy and his family run a mixed beef and sheep farm in Somerset and have been Tesco suppliers for 12 years. They supply all of there finished stock to Southern Counties Fresh Foods.

The beef suckler herd are pure bred Simmental cattle and Roy is proud that the cattle blood lines are so good that he enters some into local agricultural shows. Some of the young bulls are sold for breeding to other beef and dairy farmers as they make an excellent sire for the dairy herd to improve the quality of Holstein cross calves.

The lamb flock consists of 700 head of Suffolk and Mule breeding ewes that lamb from March onwards. The 1300 lambs produced graze the Somerset moors and benefit from natural pasture. The lambs finish directly from their mothers in August and Roy starts creeping feeding the remaining lambs from August to December when they are ready for sale to Southern Counties. Steve Lowe (procurement manager) visits Roy regularly to help with the lamb selection process which means that more meet the required deadweight specification of 16kgs – 21kgs deadweight. The partnership between Roy and Steve is invaluable to the beef and lamb production systems as this helps the farm to be efficient and helps for planning the production systems in the future.