We are now busily taking Christmas bookings for the processing of;

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Until that point we had relied on other reputable free range growers for our online pork sales and for our Simply Free Range butcher shops in Mt Waverley and Rosanna.

While we still rely on six other free range pig producers to breed our Koallah Farm approved animals, we’re now successfully raising the pigs right here on the farm. 

We currently purchase 16 piglets every fortnight when they are weaned off their mothers at about 6-8 weeks of age. The piglets are brought to Koallah Farm and tended to daily in large paddocks where they have access to shelters and are free to do whatever they like and to grow at their own natural rate.

We’re lucky to have some stony rises country at Koallah Farm where underlying volcanic rock provides grazing areas that are less likely to become wet and boggy. This is important to us, because it means we can farm pigs without them causing long term damage to vegetation and the natural environment.

Access to pasture plays in important role in the diet of pigs. Aside from the succulent fresh grass, pigs forage beneath the surface where the soil and plant matter contains all sorts of natural minerals and proteins that keep them healthy. We also supplement their feed with a vegetable-based meal. 

Depending on their individual growth rates, the pigs spend between 3-4 months at Koallah Farm until they reach processing weight. Each week, we process eight pigs in our boutique abattoir for your online orders and for our butcher shops in Melbourne.  

At any one stage, we are now raising about 100 pigs at Koallah Farm. Controlling the environment they are grown in, their nutrition and they way they are cared for is important to us and to the quality of our pork products. 

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If this sounds all too familiar, meal planning can prevent it. Meal planning plays an important role in ensuring you and your family enjoy a healthy balanced diet. It also alleviates the daily stress of deciding what’s for dinner, puts a stop to the constant trips to the shops and saves you money.

We’ve developed a few tips to help you and your family (the kids will love to get involved) plan your meals and enjoy fresh, natural and healthy produce.

1) Sit down and work out what you would like your weekly plan to include in general terms. For example, each week would you like to have one stirfry meal, a pasta meal, a slow cooker/soup meal, a salad, steak or mince beef meal etc. This template will vary depending on how much meat you like to eat, your budget, household and likes/dislikes.

2) Think about maximising some cheaper cuts of meat, as well as treating yourself to some premium cuts. The slow cooker is a great way to turn things like lamb shoulder, gravy beef, osso bucco, chuck and ribs into family favourites.

3) Decide on a handful of dinners that your family will enjoy regularly. These can form the foundation of your meal plan and rotate onto your dinner table every week or two. You might decide on 10 dinners, for example, that you use once every two weeks. This would leave two dinners a week to add variety to your meal plan and try new recipes and flavours.

4) Once you’ve decided on the look and feel of your meal plan, considered how you might use different cuts to stretch your protein dollars and developed your core dinner recipes, it’s time to buy what you need. With our online ordering and free home delivery service, we would encourage you to order on Wednesday nights for Friday/Saturday delivery. This allows you to pick up your fresh fruit and vegetables on Saturday morning and kick off your first dinner for the week that night.

Nutrition Australia has some useful meal plan templates and recipes that might help you further here.

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