by Barbara Cossins.

WE welcomed a new member to our team at Rawston Farm Butchery back in September, the young apprentice Leighton Foot.
Young butcher’s apprentices don’t come along very often, and what a joy it is to have found a course for him.
There weren’t any courses on offer in Dorset, so Leighton is following an online apprenticeship, training on the job, guided by our butchers, and being assessed by his tutor via Teams meetings.

In the middle of January, we met his course tutor for the first time, who came down from Cambridge to see Leighton in person. It was lovely to meet her face-to-face rather through a screen.
I can’t stress enough how important apprenticeships are for the future of young people. How are they going to learn much-needed skills for the food and farming community, if the courses aren’t there for them to take?
We need more young students coming into the food and farming workforce, so youngsters should think about it as a career option – everyone needs to eat and it’s a fabulous industry to be involved in.

It’s a joy seeing Leighton have lots of hands-on experience at Rawston Butchery. He can already make sausages tied by hand. We don’t have a machine and it’s difficult to do – and it’s an art form making them all the same size.
Leighton gets great experience at a small business like ours as we do things the old-fashioned way and should be proud of his sausage-making achievements.
For example, we often butcher customers’ own lambs and pigs for their home freezers, services which are now hard to find.
I know it’s hard for colleges to make apprenticeships pay but where are young people going to go if they can’t learn important skills in higher education in Dorset?

University is not the right option for everyone, and neither is going straight into an office or a factory. Keeping hands-on, practical skills alive is crucial to the UK food economy.
We are still using lots of seasonal game in our cooking and catering, with nothing going to waste. This is a priority at the butchery and at The Langton Arms.

Every week delicious game is being turned into sausages, burgers and game pie mix for the pub menu, and tasty dishes for eating at home sold at our farm shop.
Lots of vegetables are at their seasonal best in February – I love roasted root veg best of all.
February is still such a cold month – so get those slow cookers out and enjoy slow-cooked stews and casseroles after a long day at work or college.

Barbara Cossins is founder of Love Local Trust Local; www.thelangtonarms.co.uk; www.rawstonfarmbutchery.co.uk; www.lovelocaltrustlocalawards.co.uk