About us
Farming’s in our blood here at Hinchliffe’s – after all, we’ve been doing it for well over a century now.
Established in 1889, the business has grown ever since then thanks to the hard work, ingenuity and perseverance of its workers. In the early 1960s, in response to the growing popularity of our home-reared meats, we acquired Sunnyside Farm at Netherton. The business is currently run by the second, third and fourth generations of the Hinchliffe family, and although some of our farming practices may have evolved with the times, our commitment to quality produce, sustainability, supporting local businesses and animal welfare hasn’t changed one bit.
Today, we like to think we’re a great example of a business that combines the very best of modern, responsible farming techniques with traditional values of integrity, warmth and real customer service. Our visitors tell us that’s exactly what they like about the way we do things here at Hinchliffe’s, so why not come along and see for yourself..?
Hinchliffe's green initiative
Did you know that we have our own artesian well water on the farm at Hinchliffes?
It's pumped out of the ground used to water all our livestock and plants on the farm and for general cleaning purposes and to flush the toilets. This saves precious water - a resource which requires a lot of energy and effort to purify. Although drinkable it's actually quite hard water, which is unusual in an area noted for it's very soft water.
Therefore, we use good old tap water in the Farm Shop, Butcher's and Restaurant to ensure that our customers get Yorkshire's finest.
All our cardboard boxes (and there are a lot!) are flattened into bales for recycling, as is all our plastic.
Green (or Orange?) Cattle Food -
O
our Zummo orange machine freshly squeezes oranges on the premises which we bottle and sell in our shop (and the The Old Farmhouse Restaurant). But a lot of oranges are needed to make a litre of juice so there's a lot of waste oranges left over at the end of the day. So we feed them to our cattle - and they love them.
There's a new brewery in the Holme Valley called "Summer Wine Brewery"
(www.summerwinebrewery.co.uk) based in Honley, brewing some wonderful new beers. We will be selling them very soon, but in the meantime we have been able to help them out by taking away all their spent Malt and Hops (up to
800kg) and feeding it to our cattle. It's got excellent nutritional value and as all the alcohol gets left behind in the beer - they don't get squiffy! I don't think we'd cope with a herd of drunk cattle. It also saves the brewery having to pay to dispose of it and for the processing of it by waste management companies.
Carrot Boxes to Turkey Boxes
All year round we save our wholesale carrot boxes in preparation for Christmas. Then, rather than use a carrier bag to take home your Turkey in, we pop the bird in the box instead. Just another way we can try to save on packaging.
Bills into bedding?
Well most people would recycle, which we do with our cardboard boxes, but we have found another great use for waste office paper. After shredding the documents, we use the shredded paper as bedding for our chickens. Barn hens like somewhere comfortable to lay their eggs and what better than load of old bills and invoices as a green alternative to bedding.
