Enterprising Co Londonderry farmer shown to have great tasting smoked bacon

Jonathan owns and runs Buchanan Farm Foods with wife Lois. The business, which is located on a family farm near Kilrea, recently gained a UK Great Taste Award for his unique Irish peat smoked bacon from the Guild of Fine Foods in London. The new award joins recognition for his free-range turkeys from the Guild of Fine Foods.

“Offering a complete catering service is a logical expansion of our small business which is based on a range of artisan meats including poultry, lamb and pork,” says Jonathan. “We’ve also developed other successful products including celebration cakes.”

The new catering service offers customers a complete menu of quality meats that are ideal for a wide range of events including weddings, birthdays and celebration parties. He also supplies his hand cured bacon, in particular, to delis in Belfast and other parts of Northern Ireland.

The catering service follows his successful launch of a farm shop, which he built himself on the small farm, offering local people a wide selection of artisan foods in addition to his portfolio of fresh and packaged meats. He also takes his meat products to food markets around Northern Ireland such as the popular Inn’s Farmers’ Market near Carryduff in south Belfast.

Jonathan is understandably proud of the recent Great Taste Award gold star for his unique peat smoked bacon.

“We were thrilled to gain the recognition because it is helping to increase awareness of our products here and further afield. The awards for our turkeys also helped to build sales,” he explains.

The bacon is dry cured and cold smoked over traditional Irish peat, turf as we know it, from the local area. It’s smoked slowly for a short time over the embers of a turf fire, which provides a very distinctive flavour. The bacon is from a long established local supplier and is fully traceable.

“The bacon is an integral part of our focus on developing deliciously different flavours for our all our meats,” adds Jonathan, who has also developed mutton and lamb products.

​