Boer Peter

Boer Peter is a dairy farm of 65 cows at Boerderij de Graalburcht in Haarzuilens, run by the family's third generation, which sells its own beef and cheese from the farm.

Grass makes up 90% of the cows' ration, cut from the farm's own land and from the Haarzuilens estate, which the farm helps manage with Natuurmonumenten; the other 10% is concentrate fed during milking. In summer the cows graze in the Haarzuilens nature area. The farm keeps dual-purpose cows that give both milk and meat, the cows keep their horns, and the calves stay on the farm, where the heifers grow up to join the herd and the young bulls graze the outlying fields. The cheese is made from the herd's milk and comes young-matured, old, or flavoured with cumin, nettle or Italian herbs. Their website says no preventive medicines are used and no E-numbers, binders or preservatives are added to the meat.

The beef is sold by the share: a cow is slaughtered only once all of it has been sold, and about two weeks later each buyer gets a mixed box of cuts, from steak to mince, delivered chilled within about 20 km of Haarzuilens. Cheese boxes are delivered in Vleuten, De Meern, Maarssenbroek and Leidsche Rijn, and there is a farm shop in the old cowshed at the back of the farmhouse.

The whole cow is used, nose to tail.