De Boerderij van Bertus en Riek

De Boerderij van Bertus en Riek is a farm shop on the Kruisweg in Beekbergen, on a family farm restarted in 2018, selling pork from their own Bonte Bentheimer pigs, eggs from their own Welsumer hens and surplus vegetables from the farm garden.

The pigs are Bonte Bentheimer, an old slow-growing breed; according to their website they have an outdoor run with a mud pool all day and a straw pen at night, eat feed grown on the farm plus fruit and vegetables collected from the local supermarket. The Welsumer hens lay the speckled eggs; whether they range outside we couldn't confirm. The vegetables grow outdoors, some in the farm's greenhouse, and their website says no synthetic fertiliser, chemical sprays or antibiotics are used; they reach the shop only as surplus, June to September. Beef and cured meats are sold too, partly bought from unnamed colleague farms, so the beef's origin is unconfirmed. The farm holds no SKAL certificate and we found none in the register; what qualifies it here is the pigs' outdoor life and the unsprayed garden.

The self-service front is open every day except Sunday from 8:00 to 20:00 for potatoes, eggs, jam, seasonal vegetables and mustard; the whole shop, including the frozen meat, is open on Saturdays from 9:00 to 15:00.

Straw from the farm's own wheat beds the animals and mulches the garden, and the rest is composted for the fields.