Roland Ballard <p><strong>What’s our beef with burgers?</strong></p> <p>Why are we on such a campaign to rebrand the burger?</p> <p>Well&#8230;</p> <p>In our minds, a burger should be a wonderfully convenient, nutritious, easy to keep/freeze/cook option for a meal at home. Like fish fingers or sausages, they don’t have to be in a big floury bap with cheese, ketchup and greasy fries. They can be enjoyed with a lovely salad, some new potatoes or roasted vegetables maybe.</p> <p>So we’re trying to free the burger. To take it out of the bap and show how, with meat the quality of steak (or even better!), it can be enjoyed in a totally different way to how it has been generally packaged in the last thirty years.</p> <p>First we had to prove that the burger doesn’t have to be low quality, leftover meat and that it doesn’t need to be greasy and fried. Nor does it need breadcrumbs to bind it or other cheaper products to ‘pad it out’.</p> <p>Our Classic Burger is minimum 87% beef. The beef is 21-day matured, pure-bred, grass-fed, naturally-reared Aberdeen Angus Beef&#8230; not the trim, not the last scraps of beef jetwashed off the carcass&#8230; This beef is from the joints used for steaks and roasting, such as Topside, Silverside, Braising, Rump&#8230;</p> <p>Then we use free-range eggs, crushed black pepper, garlic, fresh parsley and some pure tomato puree.</p> <p>We don’t use breadcrumbs or rusk as the egg does the binding for us. Our burgers are 100% gluten and wheat-free.</p> <p>For our flavoured burgers, we start with this base mix and then add the ingredients on top. For example, we chop fresh red peppers, drizzle a little Extra Virgin Olive Oil over the top and roast. Then, once cooled, we mix it with the burger mix. We add some zest from fresh limes and some ground paprika and hand mix the big batch of burger mix.</p> <p>Then every burger is weighed to within two grams (minimum weight of 141g so approx 5oz burger, a bit bigger than a quarter pounder) and sealed with a vacuum packing machine. Then the sleeve is attached, the batch number is stuck (to ensure total traceability for environmental health reassurance and to concur with our remit for using pedigree beef) and it is put straight into the fridge or freezer.</p> <p>The vacuum sealing helps to prevent freezer burn like some meat can get in the deep freeze.</p> <p>So&#8230; why all this effort?</p> <p>Because this is how we truly believe the burger should be treated; only the good stuff and a guarantee that that top quality will never be compromised.</p> <p>And on top of this, have a look at the nutritional goodness:<br /> High in Omega 3 and 6 because the cows are exclusively grass-fed. No fattening with grain or any unnatural feed and no nasty pesticides on the grass.<br /> Beef is actually less calories per portion than a skinless chicken thigh.<br /> There’s more iron in an 80g portion than 8 handfuls of raw spinach.<br /> The beef is packed full of zinc and vitamin B.</p> <p>We have been delighted in our first year to discover that lots of mums are buying our burgers to give to their children. The convenient meal is enjoyed by the children, and the parents know that they can give them a treat but one which is still good, homemade food: absolutely no additives or nasties.</p> <p>We have also received the biggest compliments like people saying that they’ve served our burgers at dinner parties or given a box of them as a Christmas present.</p> <p>We’ve also loved building our terrific regulars who are over the age of 60. When doing some burger research a few months ago, we read that the ‘over 55s’ were a demographic that the multi-billion pound burger industry had never reached. We laughed because already about 30% of our farmers’ markets and home delivery regulars were over 55!</p> <p>So this is really why we think the burger deserves a second chance.</p> <p>And we promise to keep making burgers the proper way.</p> 2010-01-07T11:28:39+00:00 about-burgers 3728502 2010-01-07T11:28:39+00:00 341002 About Burgers 2010-01-07T11:28:39+00:00 *What’s our beef with burgers?* Why are we on such a campaign to rebrand the burger? Well... In our minds, a burger should be a wonderfully convenient, nutritious, easy to keep/freeze/cook option for a meal at home. Like fish fingers or sausages, they don’t have to be in a big floury bap with cheese, ketchup and greasy fries. They can be enjoyed with a lovely salad, some new potatoes or roasted vegetables maybe. So we’re trying to free the burger. To take it out of the bap and show how, with meat the quality of steak (or even better!), it can be enjoyed in a totally different way to how it has been generally packaged in the last thirty years. First we had to prove that the burger doesn’t have to be low quality, leftover meat and that it doesn’t need to be greasy and fried. Nor does it need breadcrumbs to bind it or other cheaper products to ‘pad it out’. Our Classic Burger is minimum 87% beef. The beef is 21-day matured, pure-bred, grass-fed, naturally-reared Aberdeen Angus Beef... not the trim, not the last scraps of beef jetwashed off the carcass... This beef is from the joints used for steaks and roasting, such as Topside, Silverside, Braising, Rump... Then we use free-range eggs, crushed black pepper, garlic, fresh parsley and some pure tomato puree. We don’t use breadcrumbs or rusk as the egg does the binding for us. Our burgers are 100% gluten and wheat-free. For our flavoured burgers, we start with this base mix and then add the ingredients on top. For example, we chop fresh red peppers, drizzle a little Extra Virgin Olive Oil over the top and roast. Then, once cooled, we mix it with the burger mix. We add some zest from fresh limes and some ground paprika and hand mix the big batch of burger mix. Then every burger is weighed to within two grams (minimum weight of 141g so approx 5oz burger, a bit bigger than a quarter pounder) and sealed with a vacuum packing machine. Then the sleeve is attached, the batch number is stuck (to ensure total traceability for environmental health reassurance and to concur with our remit for using pedigree beef) and it is put straight into the fridge or freezer. The vacuum sealing helps to prevent freezer burn like some meat can get in the deep freeze. So... why all this effort? Because this is how we truly believe the burger should be treated; only the good stuff and a guarantee that that top quality will never be compromised. And on top of this, have a look at the nutritional goodness: High in Omega 3 and 6 because the cows are exclusively grass-fed. No fattening with grain or any unnatural feed and no nasty pesticides on the grass. Beef is actually less calories per portion than a skinless chicken thigh. There’s more iron in an 80g portion than 8 handfuls of raw spinach. The beef is packed full of zinc and vitamin B. We have been delighted in our first year to discover that lots of mums are buying our burgers to give to their children. The convenient meal is enjoyed by the children, and the parents know that they can give them a treat but one which is still good, homemade food: absolutely no additives or nasties. We have also received the biggest compliments like people saying that they’ve served our burgers at dinner parties or given a box of them as a Christmas present. We’ve also loved building our terrific regulars who are over the age of 60. When doing some burger research a few months ago, we read that the ‘over 55s’ were a demographic that the multi-billion pound burger industry had never reached. We laughed because already about 30% of our farmers’ markets and home delivery regulars were over 55! So this is really why we think the burger deserves a second chance. And we promise to keep making burgers the proper way.