It started with just two pet sheep. Now farm is up for Good Food Club Award

A family-run farm near Grantham has been named as a finalist in the 2024 Great Food Club awards. Gelston Lamb is an award-winning farm, caterers and butcher's shop in Gelston that has gone from strength to strength over the years, and is now a finalist for Food Producer of the Year.

The farm is run by husband and wife Chris and Louise Elkington, with their two daughters, Imogen and Eleanor, helping out as mini shepherdesses. Louise said: "We started with just two pet sheep and we have slowly built up over the years to 500 breeding ewes."

She explained that she had two pet sheep which were kept from her parent's small flock, and then in 2010 they decided to farm themselves and so purchased 30 ewe lambs. They ran the little flock in some rented paddocks behind their home and then started to slowly add to their flock and expand.

Louise added: "We started the catering side of it about ten years ago in 2014. We were selling it directly to the public through cooking burgers and things like that.

"That was the best way for us to advertise what we do." They then started entering more local shows, events and farmers markets, and eventually fulfilled their dream of having their own on-farm butchery.

Louise shared: "In September 2019 we put the butchery on the farm and that was when we wanted to make burgers and things for the events, but then Covid hit so we had this butchery to make all these burgers for the events that were then cancelled.

"We thought we had to do something with it so we started started selling small packages on Facebook, and because of Covid and people not wanting to go to the shop and instead have things delivered, it just really took off. We have slowly added different packages to our website."

She added: "We don't want to waste anything so people pre-order online and we butcher to order." Due to this, the farm is able to offer a huge range of products online, with everything from burgers and kebabs to BBQ packs and mutton packs.

The farm has had "amazing" feedback over the years, with the rack of lamb shoulders being recognised with three great taste stars, and the farm's lamb bacon has also won awards. Louise explained that this sort of bacon is "not something everyone does and a lot of people haven't heard of it."

She added: "Butchers around us have been closing and there have been so many that have disappeared recently so I think people appreciate being able to come to the farm and buy the lamb that is being reared in the fields, you can't get more local than that."

Gelston Lamb was recently named as a finalist for Food Producer of the Year in the Great Food Club awards, which recognise the best food and drink independents across the East Midlands. Louise said: "It's an honour to be nominated.

"It's the first time that we have been nominated so to go into the finals with great other businesses like Cote Hill Cheese, it's just an honour to be alongside businesses like that who have been going a lot longer than we have."