Late Summer at Hartgrove Farm
Here at Hartgrove Farm, the grass has long been cut and baled, but we’ve left generous borders of long grass untouched to provide food and shelter for the wildlife we share the farm with. Swifts have been swooping around the barns, young foxes have been spotted slipping along the hedgerows, and roe deer bucks are returning to the farm in greater numbers as the rut approaches. The hedgerows are changing too. Blackberries and sloes are ripening, turning them deep shades of purple and black and providing a welcome feast for birds and other wildlife. Betty, our salami-dog, enjoys snaffling one or two on her daily rounds.
Meanwhile, inside the curing rooms, the team has been kept busy making all the delicious things you’ve been enjoying throughout the summer — burgers piled high with British Nduja, sharing boards laden with British charcuterie and more cured-meat-topped pizzas than we can count. Hartgrove Coppa, burrata, honey and walnut flat breads was a standout creation from one of our customers. Thank you to everyone who has shared photos of their creations with us. We love seeing where our charcuterie ends up.
Christmas Chat Well Underway
And dare we say it… Christmas preparations are already well underway.
Our Hartgrove Coppa and Dorset Bresaola take many months to cure, which means the meat you’ll be enjoying on festive charcuterie boards this Christmas is already here at Hartgrove, slowly fermenting, curing and developing all that delicious flavour.
So, when you tuck into a slice over Christmas, spare a thought for us back here in the last days of Summer, quietly getting your festive feasting underway.
Our Pre-Order service for Christmas will be launching soon. Take a sneak peak at our new festive products in our Seasonal Collection
A Great Taste of August
August brought us some particularly lovely news from the Great Taste Awards, with not one but two of our snacking favourites picking up a coveted Gold Star.
Our Mutton Snacking Salami with Harissa & Preserved Lemon and Wild Venison Beer Sticks were both awarded Great Taste 1 Star Awards. It’s always a proud moment for our team when the products we develop, make, smoke and cure here in Dorset receive recognition from the Great Taste judges — particularly when they’re made using fantastic British ingredients and flavours we genuinely love.
The judges described our Wild Venison Beer Sticks as “vibrant and enticing”, praising the distinctive flavour of the venison and the building warmth of the chilli. Our Mutton Snacking Salami was praised for its combination of rich mutton, zingy preserved lemon and gentle warmth from harissa. We’ll happily raise a glass to that.
Out & About at Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival
August also saw us packing up the van and heading to one of our favourite local foodie events, Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival.
There’s something particularly enjoyable about swapping the curing room for a festival stand for the weekend. We get to hand out plenty of samples, talk far too much about salami and, most importantly, meet some of the people who eat what we make.
Being surrounded by cheesemakers, farmers, food producers and plenty of hungry visitors is also a brilliant reminder of just how much fantastic food is being made here in Dorset and across the South West. And naturally, a festival dedicated to cheese is somewhere we feel very much at home — cheese and charcuterie are pretty good acquaintances, after all.
And Just Like That, Autumn Is Around the Corner
August always feels like a month with one foot in each season. There are still long evenings, outdoor suppers and plenty of summer grazing to enjoy, but the hedgerows are heavy with fruit, the mornings are getting cooler and there’s the first hint of autumn in the air.
Here at Hartgrove, that means a new season of eating is beginning too. Our Summer Charcuterie Letterbox is enjoying its final outing as we welcome our Autumn Charcuterie Letterbox.
Taste What We’ve Been Making
From award-winning snacking salamis to British charcuterie made for sharing, everything we make starts right here at Hartgrove Farm. Explore the range and bring a little taste of Dorset to your table.
