Made in Britain finalist: The Real Veal Company

Country Living magazine features local food producers every month - the Made in Britain Awards were launched by the magazine, together with Waitrose and Farmers Guardian, to reward those who are creating the best-quality and most innnovative foods, while keeping traditional skills alive. Five food producers of the year each received £5,000 from Waitrose to develop their business. The overall Made in Britain Food Champion (selected from these five) received an additional £5,000. Seven finalists were given the chance to have their product stocked in local branches of Waitrose. The Farmers Guardian Best Farm Entrepreneur will also receive £5,000 from Waitrose.

When Vicky and Jon Brown first started selling veal at farmers' markets they faced open hostility from shoppers. "People would come up to us and accuse us of cruelty - some still do," Vicky says. She and Jon have spent a lot of time during the past three years explaining why the veal they produce near Looe in Cornwall is welfare-friendly: their calves are reared on milk and cereals in open-sided barns with deep straw bedding and plenty of room to move around - a far cry from the veal-crate system (now illegal in the EU) that repelled a generation of consumers.

"We are passionate about the ethics of what we do," says Vicky, who, as the daughter of milk farmers, was appalled by the fate "Everyone who drinks milk creates the problem of unwanted male dairy calves. Veal is a solution." of bull calves born to dairy cows. "Male calves are an inevitable byproduct of dairy farming; if they are not reared for veal they face being shot at birth," she explains.

"We thought it was such a waste." She and Jon wanted to start a food-producing business, having moved from the south east to raise their young family on the farm where Vicky grew up. "We asked my brother, Rob, who'd taken over my parents' pedigree Guernsey and Holstein dairy herd, to keep back a few calves for us to rear," she recalls. "We worked out how to do it through trial and error: there was nowhere to go for advice as few people were raising veal as publicly as we decided to do."

Bocaddon Farm veal calves drink milk for their whole lives, in the form of milk powder mixed with whey from the farm's cheesemaking dairy. They also have hay and barley from birth. "We try to simulate what they'd eat if they were left with their mothers," says Vicky, who was an ambulance technician before returning to her farming roots. "Their varied diet gives the meat a rich, pink colour, but it's also very tender."

Slaughtered after six months at a local family-run abattoir, the carcasses return to the farm to be hung for seven to ten days in the on-farm butchery that Jon and Vicky built in a converted cow shed. "Veal cuts are completely different to those of a beef animal, and after going through four local butchers, who didn't have the time or patience to do it properly, we decided to butcher it ourselves," Jon explains. He does most of the cutting and Vicky works alongside him making sausages and burgers inspired by the preferences of sons Harvey and Freddie. "It's a good job we get on so well," Jon laughs.

They've doubled veal production in the past year (Rob rears the calves, while Jon and Vicky process and market them), and now take not only every Bocaddon bull calf into high-welfare production, but also those from neighbouring dairy farms. "The farmers are delighted that there's a market for animals that used to be wasted," Vicky says.

"Everyone who drinks milk is creating the problem of unwanted dairy calves. The more people understand that veal can be a healthy, delicious and ethical meat, the more calves will be saved from a premature end."

The Real Veal Company (01503 220991; www.bocaddonfarmveal.com)

Find all of this year's Made in Britain Awards winners here 

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