This Little Piggy » blog

First Festival a Huge Success

sophie — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 09:35:50 +0000

This Little Piggy’s first festival was a huge success, and not only that, the festival was in aid of a great cause – raising money for the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

The Edstone Music Festival was the first outing of our ‘thislittlepiggywenttomarket’ van, and was also the first chance for the public to sample our home-reared pork. We’re happy to say it went down a treat! It wasn’t just the This Little Piggy food that went down well, we have to take our hats off to all the performers too, as the music was great.

Not only did we have our home-reared pork on the menu, but also lamb and game sausage that came from the Carlton Towers estate. We were serving food until around midnight, and we then provided the much needed bacon butties the next morning.

The ‘thislittlepiggywenttomarket’ food trailer will soon be wrapped in our ‘This Little Piggy’ design and is ready for more events!

Please contact us to enquire about catering for your event.

Edstone Music Festival

sophie — Thu, 09 Jul 2015 10:20:28 +0000

Our ‘thislittlepiggywenttomarket’ van will making its first appearance at Edstone Music Festival on Saturday 11th July 2015, in support of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The festival raises money for the MS society and its dedicated fight against this condition, one which we proudly support.

This will be the first time the public will be able to sample our home-reared pork, and we can’t wait to hear your verdict!

There will be an eclectic mix of music to suit all tastes, and the festival is very much a family affair. To find out more about the festival, the cause and how to purchase tickets, please visit the Edstone Festival website or their Facebook page.

The Pigs' Favourite Treat

sophie — Mon, 06 Jul 2015 15:07:07 +0000

The charming home-reared Oxford Sandy and Blacks at Carlton Towers are feeding on pig nuts twice a day with a little treat of fruit and vegetables. We not only source the ingredients we use at Cooks and Carlton Towers locally, but the pigs’ treats are locally sourced, too.

Their treats of fruit and vegetables are unsaleable produce collected weekly from local suppliers, just down the road from Carlton Towers. We have discovered our Oxford Sandy and Blacks’ favourite treats are apples and pears, but they don’t like celery, courgettes or aubergine.

In the News

sophie — Fri, 03 Jul 2015 15:54:48 +0000

It seems there are more than just us who find Carlton Towers’ own Oxford Sandy and Blacks endearing. Here they are along with Lord Gerald featuring in the newspaper this week. The piece sums up very nicely many of the upcoming plans at Cooks including plans for the pigs – vegetarians look away now.

The intention is to use the pork in classes at Cooks, with the rest for sale on the This Little Piggy Went to Market site and at a market stall in London. The first class is in May when we welcome back expert Master Butcher David Lishman with a one-day butchery Nose to Tail Class using Carlton’s exquisite pigs.

But for now these little delights seem very content snuffling around the walled garden at Carlton Towers and indeed, loving the lovely spring sunshine, when it does manage to peep through.

Read what The York Press has to say about us and the pigs

First Pigs Arrive at Carlton Towers

sophie — Fri, 03 Jul 2015 15:48:17 +0000

These are our delightful Oxford Sandy and Blacks living a lovely life in the walled garden at Carlton. It is so hard not to fall in love with them as they are simply bursting with character.

These handsome creatures very much represent a new exciting project at Cooks, the Carlton School of Food. Cooks is not just about cooking, but rather about the whole story of food from start to finish, how it is grown and produced, and how it is prepared and finally cooked. This historic breed of pigs, which are known to be natural foragers, are an ideal addition to Carlton Towers estate. With acres of woodland for the Oxford Sandy and Blacks to roam freely around, Carlton is the perfect backdrop for these exquisite pigs favoured by many for their lean memorable pork and excellent quality bacon and ham.