Speciality producer launches Irish Moilie Beef

Bruce's Hill Cattle Company, the Northern Irish speciality meat producer, has launched Irish Moilie Beef products as part of its business focus on developing and marketing native beef breeds.

The company, based on a farming enterprise in county Antrim, has been enjoying considerable success in Britain with its Irish Dexter beef especially with high-end customers such as Selfridges and celebrity chef James Martin.

Bruce's Cattle has also been developing beef from Belted Galloway cattle reared on the four farms run by owner Mike Frazer.

Frazer says: "The Irish Moiled cattle has a rich heritage and is a smaller animal which provides beef with superb marbling and eating quality. The launch of the Irish Moilie beef is part of our strategy of offering consumers different flavours from rare breed herds."

The Moilie is Northern Ireland's original and only native cattle breed. It is finished in 100 per cent grass and requires a little longer to mature compared to other breeds. This slow-maturing process results in rich marbling that gives Moilie beef a distinctive and succulent taste.

Bruce's Cattle Company, which has gained a series of UK Great Taste Awards for its beef, especially its Irish Dexter meats, raises cattle on over 800 acres of rich pastures near Antrim town.

The company has played a crucial role in reviving Irish Dexter, another native breed which faced extinction several years ago. In addition to its own Dexter herd, the company has set up its own supplier network in Northern Ireland.

The Irish Moilie breed was popular throughout Ireland in the 19thcentury and thrived on hill farms particularly in the north of Ireland. The breed faced extinction by the 1970s when only 30 breeding females survived. It was saved by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, formed in 1979.

"We've got exceptional products and a tremendous story to tell, the sort of heritage and provenance which UK consumers are seeking increasingly," he adds.