Episode 2 The Farm Fixer

'These are tough times for Northern Ireland's small farms and rural businesses.'

Am I talking to an accountant that's gone all soft?

'I'm Nick Hewer,

'and once again I'm returning to my Northern Irish roots...'

This is my country, what are you doing here?!

I've never heard of Ballyclare!

'..to help these small farms and rural businesses diversify.'

-You're not supposed to cross your feet!

-Oh, Spiderman!

I may not be an expert in their line of business,

but I've been knocking around with some of Britain's biggest

money-makers and they've given me a nose for profit.

A couple of pounds matters nothing!

You don't understand the value of what you've actually got to sell.

'There needs to be a reality check.'

You deal with the horse, shoot the horse yourself.

That's where I come in.

We're off to see Mike Frazer, he's only been farming for four years,

but already he's won some awards for his Dexter beef.

But what's the point of awards if you're not making any money?

And money is something Mike Frazer knows a lot about, having

made his fortune in Africa and Asia as an accountant and entrepreneur.

He returned to Northern Ireland four years ago acquiring three farms

comprising 450 acres.

Collectively they're now Bruce's Hill. He's built his reputation

with Aberdeen Angus, Belted Galloway and Dexters, but after two

harsh winters, the market for breeding stock has tumbled...

Our big hope was that we would sell some of our pedigree bulls.

We won a lot of championships with them,

but we went to sell at a time when farmers didn't really want to buy,

because they didn't want stock in for the winter.

So with no revenue from his pedigree cattle, Mike's sole income

is from his own farm shop on the outskirts of Ballymena.

We're now at a stage where we have to make a few decisions about

whether we can keep going at this scale or

whether we maybe need to scale down.

-Hello, Nick, how are you?

-How are you?

-Very well thank you.

-Good, I've got all my stuff.

-Right.

-We can get down to business.

Do you want to go and see some Dexters?

-Thank you, please, can't wait.

-Come ahead.

No time for tea and comfort, I need to come face to face

with Mike's cash cow.

So these are your little Dexters, I'm amazed at how small they are!

These actually are the show Dexters.

The Dexters for the beef are slightly bigger.

So these are the sort of model farm cattle really,

-they're the pretty ones?

-Traditionally these would have been kept in smallholdings

throughout Ireland.

Our Dexters, in particular,

because they run on our hill farm, on the traditional rougher ground,

they actually have a bit more flavour.

So you're saying that the taste is particularly special

and you can get a premium price for the Dexter taste.

This is a specialist beef that you will pay extra money for.

You pay a premium, because it's a smaller animal.

So per kilo, Dexter gets a better price,

gives you a better margin and greater profit?

Big bucks in theory, but only if you're selling.

So your show Dexters look a bit of a hobby to me.

The thing is, for years you were a successful accountant

in Africa, Bangladesh and all the rest of it, you've been in farming

half an hour, so who's actually running this on a day-to-day basis?

The guy's name is Stephen Buick. He's the farm manager.

-Where is he?

-He's down at the other farm at Edenvale.

-Take me to him.

-Absolutely. Come ahead, come ahead.

Mike's invested heavily in his three farms.

At Edenvale, he's built a roundhouse,

the only one of its kind in Northern Ireland.

It's designed to keep cattle stress free and guarantee meat quality.

-So this is Steve.

-Pleased to meet you.

-You're running things?

-I try my best, yes.

Cos after all, Mike's only been farming for half an hour, hasn't he?

He's very much an amateur in the farming world.

And this is your expensive roundhouse. What are these?

These are some of the pedigree Angus.

This young bull here, his mother won Balmoral Show last year,

the girl beside him got third.

So how many of these do you sell through your shop each week?

Roughly we're stepping up slightly to near five,

but it's been basically three per week.

At the moment you're selling all the beef you've got through the shop

but in order to make a profit, you have to sell about ten,

-is that right?

-If we can't get that kind of numbers

going through the shop, we'll have to look for another outlet

and they're going to have to take a normal price through the market.

-Which is a lower price?

-Yes.

So this is a beef-rearing venture and you need to make some money.

By all accounts, Mike seems to be doing everything he can

to make the farm viable. So where is he going wrong?

The cattle were prize-winning, but what of his one outlet?

Would it get any awards?

Time to meet Mike's butcher, Colin, the man at the cutting edge.

So, Colin, nearly a year since you started?

What's the footfall like now?

We don't have massive numbers of customers coming through

the shop, but what we do have, we have people who come and spend

more than your average customer would spend through the week,

maybe £20, £25. Whereas other shops, it's £8 to £10.

In the average week, forget Christmas,

what would your turnover be?

We'd do between, say, six and seven thousand pounds.

But if you had an opportunity to start all over again, is this

-where you'd plonk this farm shop?

-I honestly don't know. Location is everything,

and there's a whole lot better locations. At the time

when we were looking at this place, we thought it was the right place.

-Look at all those cups and rosettes! Obviously the beef's good.

-Yeah.

-Which is the best seller?

-Rib eye steak and sirloin steaks.

-Dexter?

-Probably the Angus commercial beef would be

-the better seller.

-Dexter's not so hot? It's pricey.

It's pricey and it's a narrower customer base.

It's an acquired taste.

-Two little hurdles, it's expensive and it's an acquired taste.

-Uh-huh.

Well, I think I'll take a Dexter fillet, no wait,

I'll take two, because they're quite small.

Mike's shop might not be in the right location

and with lunch sorted, I need to find out if there IS money in meat,

particularly Dexters. Time to meet Peter Hannan,

one of the major figures in the meat industry.

What is it, I wonder, that makes him so very successful?

His outlet is out in Moira, but has a weekly average of

2,000 customers, so it can't just be about location.

The thing is, Peter, whichever way I turn, they're talking about you!

You're stuck out here in Moira, if I may put it that way

but people come in hoards to buy your product, why?

-Is it just down to price?

-Price is very important to me

and I'm sure it's very important

to you. Nobody likes to give any more than they need to, but we have

seen a move in the food industry, where quality is the primary focus.

You've got to have something spectacular.

If you want to charge somebody a decent price for it,

you've got to give them fair value for their money.

-Is there money in meat?

-You've got to innovate

and you daren't take your eye off the ball at all, Nick.

It's a tough business, we have seen lots of people come and go

in this business. If you don't do it right, you know, it's a short life.

Peter sources, butchers and packages rare

breeds from across Northern Ireland, but one thing is missing.

So you're bringing in the native breeds,

what about the Dexter? That's an old Irish breed.

We've never aspired to do the Dexters, somebody else's game

but not ours.

So Dexter's somebody else's game. Mike's hoping it's his.

He's confident of its quality, consistency and profitability.

I like meat well enough, but I'm no connoisseur,

so I've invited along three culinary experts to taste Mike's product,

to see whether it's got what it takes

to turn him into the face of meat.

I've spent all day with Mike

and the one word that keeps coming out is Dexter, Dexter, Dexter.

It's a beautiful animal, small, quaint, but at the end of the

day as a restaurateur, for me to put it on the plate to my customers,

it all has to be cost effective and that's the downside of Dexter.

Northern Irish people really do expect value for money

especially in the current climate.

Two years ago there was a novelty factor to Dexter. There was

also the snob value of be able to say, well, actually, I've eaten

Dexter, but yesterday in the middle of Belfast I had Dexter burger.

So, guys, this is the sirloin steaks.

Here we have the Belted Galloway and then we have the Aberdeen Angus

-and here we have the Dexter Sirloin steak.

-At last! Dexter!

'I'm rather hoping good things DO come in small packages.'

It tastes delicious! It really does taste beautiful.

Will it find its way to your restaurant at these prices?

It has to be priced at the quantity at the same time,

because it is, compared to other steaks it IS still very, very small.

You know? Imagine if I was going to go fillet or imagine

I was going to go for the rib eye? That would be even smaller again.

It's such an immediately accessible kind of meat,

there's nothing weird, there's nothing funny about the taste.

My mouth is watering, absolutely watering. It's delicious.

Which one is this?

That's the Belted Galloway. It's much bigger, of course.

It's softer, a more tender meat and you can see, this is the Dexter,

you can just see the difference between the Dexter and the Belted

Galloway, there's a darker hue to that, almost purplish in colour.

That's a much more tender cut,

but the flavour isn't nearly as intense as the Dexter.

Well, what about the third fellow?

I mean, this meat here, is nowhere near as good as the rest

and definitely not as good as the Dexter.

'So Dexter shines through.

'Perhaps Mike's hobbyhorse is a frontrunner after all?

'But there's no time for pudding.

'Mike has another product to promote.'

So this is the potato roussel with turf-smoked chuck of beef.

Mike's taken a local oat and potato bread recipe

and sandwiched into it some of his pulled beef.

He's calling it a roussel meat slider.

From here, it looks a bit like a sort of a damp burger.

It doesn't really look appealing to me, to be honest.

-That's the only problem with it.

-Immediately, you look at it,

you don't know what it is. I don't think it's the most attractive thing

in the world. It's brown, Nick, it's very brown!

It's actually beautifully braised. For such a beautiful

bit of meat, why braise it?

You know, I mean that's only a market through the winter.

I think that everyone is being very sniffy about this.

First of all, it's not to be eaten with a knife and fork,

it's clearly meant to be eaten like this.

There's a ratio problem, maybe, there's an awful lot of meat there

to potato bread, but the whole movement towards dirty food,

street food, that's exactly where this fits in.

Well, that's fascinating and you've given me

so much to ponder, it's frightening.

'It was time to digest the facts

'and deliver the plan to save Mike's rural empire.'

Now the only route to market, currently, is in your farm shop.

-What slightly alarmed me was that footfall was light.

-Right.

But if the market's not coming to you, why don't we go to the market?

New shops, portable shops, shops on four wheels. You know

-how they do it France and Germany and Italy?

-Yes, yes, yes.

And they have these beautiful vehicles and the driver

gets round, gets in the back, opens it up, he flaps

down a counter, he pops up a roof, he rings a bell and people come.

So they don't have to drive all the way to your shop.

Bruce's Hill Mobile Butchers will visit your town.

-I think there are logistics issues with the vans.

-Like what?

I'm not sure that you can just sail up into a town centre, unfold your van.

There must be some licensing thing, there must be something.

Possibly. OK, let's turn to Dexters. Colin in the shop said, Dexters,

great beef, but it's too expensive and it's an acquired taste.

Let's be realistic. Here in the North, there simply isn't the money.

-So what about export?

-OK.

Let's go where the money is - the big money is.

We're not going off to New York at the moment,

we're not going to Paris, we're not going to Tokyo. We'll go to London.

-Yeah.

-It'll have a handsome price against it,

but it's something special

and I think they'd make a song and dance about it.

Now let's turn now to your roussel.

It was a hit. Particularly with Joris. He said this is street food.

-Right.

-He said maybe the proportions are not quite right,

-it looks to me as though it's got too much meat in there.

-Right.

He said, I think this is a delicious dish, and it's yours - go sell it!

-Yeah. We'll go for that!

-So fired up by my proposals,

Mike gathers his team to plough

through a packed agenda and rally the workforce,

before heading off on vacation for four weeks!

What Nick has done is given us a jag in the backside

and we're basically going to go for it, OK?

We're going to go for this, big time!

The big idea that came from Nick was the roussel. It was

immediately spotted as potential for street food,

so we have to pursue how we're going to get this out as street food,

and as a very upmarket... No, we're not a chip van here, above that, OK?

This is basically sort of setting out what a roussel is

and we're calling it a roussel meat slider.

If we can think of better names, please do!

Nick's big idea was that we would we would actually go

and do mobile butchers round different towns.

I don't know how feasible that is, but there are markets,

so it might be those rather than going round towns

and if we've got the vehicle to do it, that's fine.

You tear away at it. If you want to be involved in that,

and the whole set-up of this whole street thing - fine, go for it.

So that's everyone up to speed, optimistic and content.

My only fear would be we may create our own monster.

We can't just produce cattle at the drop of a hat.

We're certainly OK in the Angus and we've enough Angus

standing in our own farm to deal with the Angus demand, if it rises.

The Dexters - a wee bit of concern. It depends on how soon it kicks off.

And it could take off sooner than he thinks.

With the boss away, farm manager Stephen shows two leading

Belfast restaurateurs around the farm.

They thrive a lot better in here. They are very content.

All the breeds theses guys are rearing

and putting to slaughter would suit us

and we're interested in using nose to tail using the braising cuts,

using the flank, using the whole carcass and then trying to use our

own skills to put that on the plate. Just like they used to do years ago.

It's absolutely amazing, amazing breed

and beautiful looking animal as well.

Making me hungry!

Three months later, I'm back in Belfast to catch up with Andy

on his home turf.

Cleary, Andy, Mike's been working hard,

because he's got his Dexter beef into your restaurant.

He could have struck gold,

but have you struck gold by buying the Dexter from him?

The Dexter on the menu here has went down a treat, it eats great.

The marbling of fat through Dexter when it cooks is unique.

And because it's a small little beast,

you don't need to age it as much.

If you age it too much, it gets slightly gamey, but it cooks up

and sometimes you cut the meat it's like cutting butter,

-it's absolutely melt in your mouth.

-But Dexter's expensive.

Does it sit well on your menu?

It's pricey, it's a quality piece of meat,

but I think you find that people are coming here because they know

that the vegetables, the fish and especially now the meat is quality.

-Yeah.

-And they're willing to pay a premium price for it.

So the Dexter IS a cash cow after all.

Time to meet it's leading disciple, Mike.

So listen, I've just been up to Andy and you've got a big fan there,

-I tell you. He loves the Dexter, he loves YOU actually!

-Well...!

He loves the Galloway, he loves the Angus.

-Well, I'm an acquired taste!

-Well you're both obviously

passionate about what you do

and he loves what he's got in the restaurant,

but there's another side to the business because he's sort of,

I guess, taking the Dexter, taking your meat from Bruce's Hill...

Yeah, yeah.

..out to a different market. Now we're both quite clear that

Bruce's Hill, the farm shop, is not in the best location.

No, it's limited.

OK. So if you're not in the right location, you go

and find the location.

And the way you do that is on four wheels and what happened there then?

Well, what we did is we found this guy and he makes

a lot of these vehicles, so we actually went to him with the

overall concept and he's managed to make us a vehicle that does both.

We can have a butcher's counter in it, we can take the butcher's

counter out and we can use it as a street vehicle as well.

And he's actually building the van for us as we speak. He's building it

to us and that's a rough concept of what the van's going to look like.

Brilliant stuff.

OK, let's put the street food to one side. What we were talking

about is you've got your farm shop, you've got all these villages

without butchers and then we're going to take this to the villages.

What's happening on that front then?

What we're actually going to do is more the agricultural shows.

Every Saturday there's an agricultural show where

-there will be...

-That's street food.

No, no, the butchers as well. The butchers as well.

We're going to do the butcher's counter and the street food.

This is what our food tastes like - you like that, you can take

it home and here's the butcher's counter right beside us.

'OK, so Mike's running with the food trailer

'but I've another challenge for him.'

So I've got something for you.

We've fixed up one of the great restaurants in London - not

only one of the great restaurants in London - one of the most

fashionable restaurants in London, 34, part of the Caprice Group.

There is no smarter, more upmarket group of restaurants in London

-than the Caprice Group, all right?

-Yes.

And you're going to be talking to the executive chef of that

whole group and let me tell you, let me tell you, you make it good.

Don't make me a mug in Mayfair, will you?

It's not all suede loafers and Savile Row suits just yet.

Mike's got three farms to run, a pitch to prepare

and meat to package before departure.

Will his product travel?

The discerning diners of London's Mayfair seek exclusivity

and quality and they're prepared to pay a premium price for it.

Can Mike's Dexters cut it in a world of Martinis and Michelin stars?

Well it's D-day for Dexter.

I'm on my way to restaurant 34 here in the heart of Mayfair,

one of the Caprice Group's great restaurants and Mike's going

to pitch his Dexter beef to the executive chef Tim Hughes.

I've pulled in a favour here. He'd better not let me down.

-Hi, Tim, very nice to meet you. Thank you for seeing me.

-Pleasure.

I'd just like to tell you a wee bit about what we are doing

and what we are trying to do at Bruce's Hill.

So we've established a really good herd of cattle,

probably some of the best cattle, we think, in the UK.

The Angus, we bought a lot of really high quality stuff in Scotland,

but our main focus is the Dexters. They're a smaller carcass.

Because they're a smaller carcass, we were a wee bit

concerned of actually getting you a steak of a size that you wanted but

we've cut it to the right size here and hopefully you'll like the taste.

-Sounds great. We need to try it.

-Thank you very much.

Frankly, Mike's pitch was lacklustre.

Perhaps Mayfair isn't his milieu after all.

As he awaits judgment in the restaurant,

I hope that in the busy kitchen, his meat will do the talking for him.

I heard the pitch.

Not that compelling, but I guess the proof's in the pudding, as it were.

So this is the product. These are the Dexters, yeah?

Yeah, that's the Dexter. I mean, that's the sirloin.

-And that's the rib eye.

-Yeah.

-Well, the first impressions,

it's a very small eye - which we call it an eye, which is the actual

eye of the meat.

Some people like a big steak, cos a lot of the steaks

-we get are a crossbreed. But this is a pure breed.

-Yeah.

And this is what he's pitching is the pure Dexter beef,

so the eye will be smaller.

I mean, we do have some meat from like Argentina, which is

a pure breed, and the form is very small, as well, like that.

I mean, basically, rather than dragging it across the Atlantic

it might be better just to bring it across the Irish Sea?

Food miles and all that sort of stuff.

-So is the proof in the eating?

-Oh, yeah, definitely.

-Are we going to cook it?

-Oh, yeah.

-Can I have some?

-Yeah,

-course you can.

-Brilliant.

So it's cost,

-flavour...

-Quality.

..consistency of supply,

-consistency of quality?

-Yeah.

I mean, how many covers have you got here?

Here we've got about 100 seats.

So if you were to take the Dexter, how much would you need

a week, do you reckon?

Roughly, probably about 40 kilos of eye, 40 kilos of sirloin.

So you'd want 40 of... that's 80 kilos.

How many Dexters can provide that?

I reckon I would probably work it out between 12 to 15 Dexters a week.

You'd have to slaughter 15 Dexters a week?

Yeah. People are very surprised that to get a rib-eye steak...

-You only get two whole rib eyes from one animal.

-Yeah.

But hold on! 10 to 15, 12 to 15 animals slaughtered a week,

that's 500, 750 a year.

-Yeah.

-That could be a problem.

Crunch time now - the taste test.

First to the pass, the Dexter rib eye.

This is what? Medium rare, would you say? Mmm-hm!

What do you think of it?

-I think I could have a problem with that.

-Yeah.

-It's got a lot of pull on it.

-Pull is what?

Chewy, slightly tough.

I want to try the sirloin now. I'll take from the middle.

Give Paul a bit. Paul?

-That's a lot better.

-A lot better.

-Is it?

-Yeah.

-And yet, traditionally, that would be a more tender cut?

That's interesting. So what does that tell us?

Ageing. How it's killed in the abattoir.

-That's it then, is it? Both of you say the rib is out.

-No.

-What about the sirloin?

-The sirloin, I'd try that.

-You would?

-Yeah. I'm not saying I wouldn't try the rib eye.

-I'd try again.

-There's a question mark now.

Yeah. There's a doubt in my mind.

-I'll leave you to tell him what's what.

-Yeah.

That's pitch imperfect and product inconsistent.

Would Mike be able to shed any light on this meat muddle?

-Well how was it?

-Yeah, um, bit of a mixed bag really.

-Right.

-The sirloin was very good. Nice and tender, good flavour,

and the guys all agreed it was good.

But the rib eye for me, it was tough and for me

that would be a massive problem.

I can't afford to send a steak out for it to come back,

so I can't use that rib eye.

It could be just the way it was brought across in hand luggage

and whatever else, but we could maybe

get some more to you, if you want?

Well, I mean, I would have to seriously test it before I am

-confident to put the rib eye on.

-OK.

Not yet the high-end endorsement Mike was seeking for his Dexters,

but undeterred he ploughs on with his street food trailer

and forges new links with Food NI.

Mike, thanks very much for coming in to see us today

because we'd really like to talk to you about opportunities to

have Bruce's Hill at the World Police and Fire Games,

which are coming to Northern Ireland this August.

We really would like to have local food producers

profiled at the games.

We've now developed this street food trailer and we're actually profiling

our own beef, our Dexter beef from Northern Ireland and roussel,

which is this sort of potato oaten bread, so you can't really get

more local than potato oaten bread, so it all seems to fit very well.

So with the trailer under way and the launch venue secured,

Mike turns his attention to master butcher John Mettrick

in an attempt to correct some of the Caprice Group's concerns.

Well, it's a good size unit.

I think you've got enough room to work with in here.

What you're going to need in here, really, is a hanging fridge.

And you're going to need like a working fridge.

From what I've seen of your set-up at the moment,

you've got like a fridge that you are using for both,

and it's not ideal that, really, because you've got people

coming in and out of the fridge all of the time

and the temperature is going up, the moisture is going into the fridge

and that's not ideal conditions for hanging the beef.

You've got some beautiful beef, no doubt about it, I just think

it might give you that bit of an edge and improve your product

still further, if you could separate the hanging from the working area.

Well, that helps explain some of the problems we've had with

restaurants saying our meat is very good, but it's a wee bit tough.

This will help eliminate some of these issues.

Seven months ago, Mike declared that he needed to sell ten cattle

a week for Bruce's Hill to survive.

I'm back to see if he's realised his ambition.

Hello, Mike. How are you?

-I'm very well, Nick. You're very welcome.

-Excellent.

So, Mike, I know that later on we're going to see the street food launch,

but coming back to your own farm shop, what's the story there?

Farm shop is,

it's what we needed for getting the beef ready for the trade beef,

but we think we're also going to open up,

we're definitely going to open up a pop-up shop in Belfast at least.

And what about other retail outlets?

We're now in three restaurants. We're in Home. You've met Andy,

we're in Home. We're in Magherafelt and our latest one is a new

restaurant in Donegore, which is about three miles from here,

a very upmarket restaurant.

So this afternoon, we launch the trailer

but you've had some dry runs quietly.

-How did they go?

-Very, very well.

-Where did you go?

We went to the National Show at Balmoral with it

and we had a fantastic time there.

We're not up to the ten cows we wanted yet.

On the week of Balmoral Show, we hit nine, which was good.

With the Police and Fire Games, we're probably about six or seven.

So an increase in productivity then.

I hope Mike's Dexter burgers go down a treat at the 2013 World Police

and Fire Games in Belfast, where he is officially launching

the Bruce's Hill food trailer.

Look at this.

'Mike's bespoke combi-trailer had a hefty price tag of £20,000.

'I hope it's a sound investment.'

This part here can turn into a butcher's counter.

We can put the butchers into it or we can run it

completely as a street food vehicle.

But today, it's a street food vehicle?

-Today it's a street food vehicle.

-What are we selling?

We've got our roundhouse burger, our Dexter burger

and a hot beef sandwich and those are the popular...

-Those are the popular things.

-Tell me this about the Dexter.

Because this all started off with Dexter, all those months ago.

And here we are now selling Dexter burgers at how much? Four quid?

£4. It's been very successful.

People have tasted it and then gone and bought the Dexter meat,

which is really what we wanted to happen.

So, there's a great old margin then between the shop price

and the sort of retail cooked price?

Yes, there is, but there are a few costs. But it's still worthwhile.

Not wishing to block profit, I stand back for the official launch.

Michele Shirlow of Food NI cuts the ribbon.

CHEERING

The pulled beef and Dexter burgers are going down a storm,

but what about our old friend the roussel?

Food critic Joris Minne, the inspiration for Mike's street food

endeavours has called by to taste the new reincarnated version.

Now you're the expert. What do you think?

-Too spicy?

-No, it's not too spicy but it's a bit masculine.

-It's very manly.

-You think this would, the blokes would like this?

Yeah, definitely. I think it needs a dip.

It's a wee bit dry, just something wet, like mustard or a sauce

or something, but it's very, very good. It's very wholesome.

People don't know what to call it - a roussel, a rissole?

I agree, it's an educational task there, isn't there?

-Yeah, but it is, it's lovely, it's a lovely taste of Ulster.

-Good.

My initial thought was perhaps Mike was a bit of a hobbyist. He loves

his little Dexter cattle, new to farming, perhaps a little big naive.

But he's a businessman and his business brain is shining through.

There's no holding him back now.

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