'Happy pigs make for tastier sausages'

As celebrity chef Jamie Oliver prepares to screen a documentary backing British pork, pig farmers from East Yorkshire are bringing home the bacon with a new venture.

The green-thinking farmers have launched the Yorkshire Outdoor brand to sell pork from pigs that have freedom to roam the fields.

All the meat for tasty sausages, bacon and ham is fully traceable to healthy outdoor herds on East Yorkshire farms.

The farmers are members of the RSPCA's Freedom Food Assurance Scheme that guarantees animals are reared in high-welfare systems.

It comes as celebrity chef Jamie Oliver announced a new campaigning TV programme called Jamie Saves Our Bacon.

In a 90-minute documentary to be screened on Channel Four in January, he will attempt to get viewers to buy British pork because 70 per cent of imported meat is from countries with lower pig-rearing standards than the UK.

The film follows the success of Jamie's Fowl Dinners, which looked at chicken and egg production.

Yorkshire Outdoor has already won the support of supermarket giant Asda to sell its products in local stores.

The venture is a partnership between pig farming brothers Grant and Mark Burton, of Manor Farm, Wilberfoss, near Pocklington, and Yorkshire Farmers Livestock Marketing Ltd.

Mark Burton said: "We had felt for a long time we wanted to take our successful farmers' market business to a wider market.

"Supermarkets have really embraced local produce initiatives and they wanted our high welfare, high-quality, fully traceable pork products.

"We're delighted with Asda's backing for the brand as part of their local sourcing campaign, and we've had very encouraging initial sales reports."

Much of the bacon sold in supermarkets may only have been cured or packaged in the UK from foreign pork.

Grant Burton added: "We believe our sausages taste better because the pigs have been free to roam and forage for a varied diet.

"Customers can rest easy that the animals have felt the sun on their backs and got their snouts stuck into a good bit of East Yorkshire soil."

Yorkshire Outdoor products are made in a new factory at Malmo Park, Sutton Fields, north Hull.