Cold smoked bacon from Northern Irish farm business

A new cold smoked bacon has been launched by Buchanan's Foods, a small Northern Ireland artisan producer. The small company, which is based on a family farm at Upperlands in county Derry, has developed a reputation in creating distinctively flavoured turkey, bacon and lamb meats from its own sources.

The new bacon is cold smoked slowly over wood dust for around 10 hours to create a unique flavour. The technique has been developed by Jonathan Buchanan, the managing director of Buchanan's Foods. The bacon is already on sale across Northern Ireland. It is also set to launch its own recipe of black pudding.

Mr Buchanan says: "Our focus is on developing different flavours and products that will set the company apart in our markets. This is the best way to ensure a sustainable business especially on the back of our success in free range turkey processing and production.

"We do especially well with our turkeys around the Christmas period and enjoyed great success with our introduction of turkey meats aged used Himalayan salt. Bacon has also become a major seller for us throughout the year, and we are working hard on developing new flavours including our most recent launch of bacon dry cured with fennel, juniper berries, sea salt and herbs. They demonstrate our focus on developing natural, chemicals-free bacon," Mr Buchanan adds.

The company is currently developing its own Himalayan salt chamber and has plans to build a smoke-box on the farm. It has also opened a small shop on the farm to sell its own meats and other artisan foods.

Buchanan's produces mutton and lamb, including its successful Yo-Yo lamb burgers, from its own Texel flock. The Lamb is dry aged in a maturation chamber of a minimum of 14 days. The unique YoYo burger is made using a blend of Greek spices.

It has also produced a range of flavoured sausages using the finest ingredients such as pork and mango, pork and apple, pork and leek, curried pork, honey and mustard, and sweet chilly.