Honeywell Meats Ltd - Brock

Humble beginnings for Honeywell Meats.

Established in 1970 by the Gornall family, Honeywell`s has grown from strength to strength, but ever remaining the traditional family business that we have always been with over 10 family members still highly involved in all aspects of the business.The Honeywell`s you know today came from very humble beginnings, with Fran and Doris Gornall taking the first step and lauching into business, selling our hand reared pork from a stall in the garage!

As we grew in popularity, Honeywell`s moved from the garage to the barn, where we set up Honeywell`s, one of the original Farm Shops. We branched out into selling our neighbours, The Thornton family`s Lamb, which we still stock today.

In November 2003, we outgrew the barn and Honeywell`s moved into our fantastic purpose built farm shop, selling a huge range of mouth watering locally produced meats from the butchery, a brilliant selection of cooked meats, salami, fresh pies and pastries and local and continental cheeses from the Delicatessen, and wonderful ranges of goodies to complement and enhance your meals.

Honeywell`s during the new build

At Honeywell`s, the family enjoy getting involved in all aspects of the business, from farming, butchery, creating our wonderful pies and ready meals in our kitchen to the general daily tasks of running the business. There is usually a member of the family somewhere to be seen in every area of the business!

The Honeywell`s family

We have our own farm land, near by to our Eaves Lane Farm shop, on which we keep herd of beautiful cattle to ultimately sell in our Lancashire farm shops. We are kept very busy feeding and maintaining this beautiful herd, but it is wonderful to see our hard work are care for these animals go into creating a wonderful end product for our customers, who can be sure that their meat has come from a great home!

At Honeywell`s Farm Shop we take pride in supporting the local farming community too and providing our customers with the finest selection of local produce. As well as using our own Beef, traditionally, we have always bought our Beef and Lamb from the Brockholes Arms Auction Mart.

This auction is almost unique, as it acts as a farmers co-operative where local farmers shares and run this small scale auction to market their produce. Anthony Gornall and myself, Liz Hughes ( Anthony`s daughter and apprentice buyer!!!!), make up our expert buying team who you will see every Tuesday down at the Auction mart, choosing the best animals from the local area for our shops and to re-stock our farm land.

Although this is a vital and necessary task to ensure we have enough stock to satisfy our valued and hungry customers, it`s also great fun and a fantastic way to meet and get to know all the local farmers who produce the wonderful meat we sell in our shops. In addition to buying from the auction mart, we also have a selection of quality tried and trusted local farmers who we buy animals directly from, all within a 10 mile radius of the farm shop.

Buying our meat this way, with a small buying chain allows us to supply our customers with not only the best quality meats, but also great value for money. Buying directly from the farmer means we can pay them a fair price for their quality, carefully reared animals and still be able to sell our meat at great value prices to our customers, as the need for middle men such as meat processors is cut out. The animals are selected then go live, straight from the auction or farm, to the abattoir. They then arrive as whole carcasses to our farm Shop at Eaves, where our highly skilled, master butchers prepare them into the wide range of fresh meat cuts that we sell at our counters.

On the shop floor

In our opinion, this method of sourcing the meat we sell in our shop, is the best way as we are able to view the best of the locally reared livestock and hand select the animals suitable to sell in our shop with our expertly trained eyes, to ensure that everything from your fillet steak to your lamb chops are something memorable to leave your taste buds tingling!

You will also find over 100 styles of cheese within our farm shop. Honeywell`s are committed to British artisan cheese makers and are lucky to be located at the heart of the prime Lancashire cheese producing area, we are spoiled for choice! Alongside the best of British cheeses, we also stock fine continental cheeses, locally produced yoghurts, milk, eggs and grocery items and much, much more.

As a new addition for 2008, the Gornall family have now have become involved with The Topping family and opened up a Honeywell`s Butchery and Delicatessen within the Barton Grange Garden centre and farm shop complex, it really is something to be seen! Rest assured that you will still find the same emphasis on our wonderful quality and value, locally produced fresh meats, cheese and delicatessen at our new branch on the A6, Brock.

At Honeywell`s we aim to make your shopping experience a pleasure rather than a chore! With that in mind you will often find a range of samples on offer to tantalise your taste buds, a pleasant atmosphere and our friendly team of skilled staff on hand to offer you expert knowledge and advice on any query.

Honeywell`s are proud to be investing in local produce ad supporting the local farming community to bring you the finest quality goods and service.