Zorg & Natuur

Zorg & Natuur is a care farm and online butcher at Amelte near Assen that sells the meat of its own herds, which graze nature reserves across the Netherlands. The beef comes from their Black Angus, Scottish Highland and Limousin cattle, which live outside all year in social herds on unfertilised, unsprayed reserves managed for Staatsbosbeheer and other landowners; at least 95% of their diet is grass and every calf grows up with its mother. The lamb is from Schoonebeeker heath sheep, grazed with a shepherd and never given extra feed, and there is also goat meat from Drentse landgeiten. Bones, bone broth, suet and organ meats such as liver, heart, tongue and kidneys are sold from both. The chicken is partly Polderhoen, slow-growing birds with free access outdoors, and mostly Oranjehoen, kept in barns with covered outdoor yards; pork and game are also sold, not yet confirmed. Zorg & Natuur holds no organic certificate; what qualifies its beef, lamb and goat here is the grazing itself, the herds living year-round in nature reserves on grass alone, which is more than the organic label asks for. The meat is sold frozen through the webshop, delivered nationwide or collected from their farm shop at Amelte 24, which is open Tuesday to Saturday, or from pickup points in Den Haag, Almere, Fochteloo, Gouda and Kropswolde. The herds are kept to graze the reserves, so an animal is slaughtered only now and then to keep a herd in balance.