We live in a fast-paced world that doesn’t appear to be slowing down. With technology constantly advancing, change is always on the horizon. Most of the time those changes benefit us if we implement them into our lives, but sometimes it’s difficult to know which changes are for the best or worse.  

The one thing that hasn’t changed is the constant demand to be better, to give or sacrifice more in the name of some greater good, be it the economy, a social cause, or just being greener, and this is particularly true with our consumer choices.  

We are now groomed to prefer fair trade products that use less packaging, and companies that are more conscious of their carbon footprint. At the same time, we are expected to pay more for these items and not fret about the additional cost - just because it serves a greater good.

While most people can get behind the underlying premise, it is not always so easy to support in practice when you live with financial constraints, especially if you have a family to feed.

Todays article will help you understand how to make consumer decisions that benefits the environment, the economy, your own convenience, and just as important, your pocket. 

First, let’s consider the ordinary approach and how it may be harming rathern than helping you and the world. 

Buying meat in store

There is no denying that there is comfort to be found in being at a store and choosing the meat you want. It lets you make a decision based on your own assessment of its quality, and perhaps it might even stimulate your appetite.

However, your ability to inspect the difference between one packet of meat from another is limited and marginal. In other words, even if you take a particular fancy of one pack, it is often to hard to say precisely why. If we are honest with ourselves, the biggest benefit comes from our ‘sense of choosing’, which feels good but is unreliable.

When you get home it is impossible to know whether the pack you chose was better or worse than the one you left behind, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter because you enjoyed the meat just as much as the last time you bought it, but again all this proves is how little difference there was between the choices rather than your supreme ability to discern anything meaningful.

But, what are the hidden costs of buying meat in store compared to online? It may seem daunting to order blindly, but how much better or worse can it be? Well, this largely depends on who you buy from because not all vendors share the same values.

Ordering online from a supermarket is still going to get you the same mass produced product that you would have bought from the store, and it likely passed through the hands of several suppliers before it got to you.

Also the freshness of meat sold in-store is often lower than those sold online. This is because meat sold online is kept in much cooler conditions because they don’t need to be kept in open fridges for a customer’s convenience or inspection.

Meat sold in open fridges in aisles surrounded by warmer air just isn’t as cool and spoils quicker. You may not be able to see the changes with your eyes, but the quality will definitely be noticeable when you cook and eat it, but you won’t recognise this if you only buy meat in store.

Ordering meat online ensures better quality

Ordering meat online may feel counterintuitive, but actually, there are several benefits.

Firstly, small butcheries like Halal Origins know that their reputation hangs on every sale. One bad purchase can be enough to fester distrust and result in a lost customer. A bad review might not harm the likes of a supermarket, but could be devastating to a small business like ours.

That risk is so prominent that it drives us to give you nothing short of the best quality, every time.

As an online supplier that sources its produce directly from local farms and delivers directly to your door, we have a much shorter supply chain than those of large supermarkets. We make fewer deliveries and we do not supply fresh and non-fresh products, meaning there is always an urgency around our fresh deliveries.

Our produce passes through less hands, which reduces the risk of contamination, and minimises the cost of transportation. It also has less of an impact on the environment.

We only source our produce from local organic farms, which means we prioritise quality rather than quantity. Our animals grow to maturity to ensure their lives are as satisfying as the meat they nourish us with. This is because they roam open pastures and eat natural diets so their muscles develop into high quality meat free from any nasties.

Large supermarkets rely on mass farming. Their derive their profit from selling high volumes at low prices, but to do that they have to sacrifice the quality of their produce. You just cannot grow millions of chickens to full maturity and have a weekly supply. It is either one or the other.

Ordering online is better for the environment and the economy

Ordering online from organic suppliers encourages ‘fair trade’ for local farmers because they get a bigger share of the retail profits when compared to supplying supermarkets who expect to buy at the lowest possible prices. This means farmers don’t have to cut corners to make ends meat - meet, sorry. Ok, that pun was deliberate, but worth it.

It is argued that feeding animals hormones to speed growth is one of the ways that mass farmers cut corners and they put your health at risk by doing so. The same is said about keeping them in cramped conditions and feeding them antibiotics to avoid sickness. We argue that if the animals need to be treated for sickness before they get to you, it is probably worth avoiding.

Halal Origins sources its meat directly from local farms and delivers straight to your door and this reduces carbon emissions by eliminating the need for every customer to make a journey. It’s the equivalent of taking the bus to work instead of driving.

Online suppliers also encounter far less waste than supermarkets that keep their shelves full, which leads to spoilage. Instead, we collect our meat from the farms after receiving your order or from subscriptions. This means the meat goes out just as quickly as it comes in.

Wholesale

Halal Origins not only supplies retail customers, but wholesale buyers, too. Some of your favourite restaurants and diners feed you with our high-quality produce. Our wholesale arm lets us benefit from better pricing that we pass on to you, our customer. More than this, our constant stock-flow ensures that we always supply you with the freshest produce because our bulk customers ensure that we never have meat sitting there waiting to be sold.

To help our customers through these difficult times, Halal Origins will be extending it’s wholesale prices to retail customers that either buy in bulk or commit to subscription purchasing.

To register your interest, email us at support@halalorigins.com.

Final thoughts

It can often feel like you have to choose between your values and your purchasing habits, but Halal Origins is here to help you align them, so you can feel proud about the decisions you make, knowing that you are having a positive impact on the environment, the economy, the welfare of animals, and indeed the quality of your food.

Our mission is to raise the quality of farming practices and our diets in a single blow. We know its a big endeavour, but we believe it is worth pursuing. After all, we have only one planet and one life, and our creator expects to cherish them both.

If you want to be part of the movement, then consider switching from low quality mass-produced products to our high-quality organic meat. Whether you love lamb, chicken or beef, we have the finest selections sourced from farms in and around the British isles.