A family-run business has reached the Regional Finals in this year’s Country Alliance Awards.

Eileen and Terry Wolfe invited Stevenage MP Stephen McPartland to visit their farm and butchery to see the range of home-grown products they offer in their farm shop.

Mr McPartland said: “It was a pleasure to visit the farm and meet the team in the shop, as well as some of the animals at the farm.

“The food on display looked amazing, and tasted fantastic, with customers from Stevenage and the surrounding villages able to come into the shop or have home delivery. I was proud to hear that locally produced products are now supplied nationally by Brookfield through their online shop.”

Eileen said: “We bought this site in 1982 when it was no more than a ploughed field, and over the years with a lot of hard work and determination have built it up to what it is today.

“We stock our own, home-produced pork and Aberdeen Angus beef, and are proud to be showing two of our herd at the Hertfordshire Show. We were delighted to show Stephen McPartland around to see some of what we do here as part of a sustainable local business that, hopefully, will be passed down through the generations.”

Brookfield Farm Butchery is very much a family affair, with son, Richard, working as a butcher and daughter Barbara overseeing the online shop, as well as producing pies and other cooked products in the kitchen.

The Countryside Alliance Awards (aka the Rural Oscars) were presented to top rural businesses by the Secretary of State for Defra, Owen Paterson MP, at the Houses of Parliament on April 30.

The Awards are the Countryside Alliance’s annual celebration of the rural produce, skills, enterprise and heritage of our small hard-working businesses. They are now in their ninth year and have become the definitive rural business awards.

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said: “These awards celebrate rural businesses across the UK from post offices to butchers, they are the backbone of rural life and it is vital that we do all we can help create the right conditions to allow these businesses to compete and thrive.”

The Parliamentary reception was attended by Regional Champions from across the UK and Ireland and the national winners were announced live by Countryside Alliance Chairman Kate Hoey MP.