Pigs on the Green
Pigs on the Green
Fergus Dunne may be laughing recounting the time 12 of his prized piglets hoovered up his newly laid lawn but he stresses “it wasn’t so funny at the time”. Owning and running a free range pork farm has its challenges, apart from your pigs rotovating your grass, Fergus and his wife Sandra work on every aspect of the farm, from rearing and breeding 100 pigs, working the land and producing the final products, which include sausages, dry cured rashers, pork loins, chops and slippers of ham. Unlike many other farms, which rear pigs indoors, Pigs on the Green specialise in rearing outdoor pigs, which produce a more succulent and better-flavoured meat. “It’s a premium product and we work with a butcher to hand make rashers and sausages in a variety of flavours,” notes Fergus, which are supplied to retail and some of the best restaurants in Ireland. “Being hands-on stretches the imagination, we are constantly creating new recipes and coming up with new ideas for chefs to use. There’s always a thrill tasting new-flavoured sausages,” says Fergus, including a seaweed version they were recently asked to develop for a restaurant. The three-year-old business has come a long way from its organic food store origins to winning a euro-Toques Food award in 2016 and is now listed in John and Sally McKennas Good Food Guide for the several years running. It’s been a natural progression for the Dunnes whose love of food piqued following a world trip and a childhood working on the family farm. “The welfare of our pigs is paramount to producing the great products we have.”
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