About Us

Meat Market Place has been developed by Tim Bedell, who comes from a beef & sheep rearing farm in the South Shropshire hills, close to the Welsh border. Tim has spent most of his working life in the meat trade. In the early 1900’s Tim’s grandfather, Frank, was a farmer, but was also the local grocer and ran the milk round (via pony and milk float) in the small market town of Bishop’s Castle.

Tim’s father, Jack, bred high quality Aberdeen Angus cattle during the 1950’s and 60’s but the native breeds like Hereford and Aberdeen Angus were being bred too small, specifically for export to North and South America, and they became unsuitable for profitable beef production in the UK. In the early 1970’s Jack, along with some other pioneering farmers, started to import the Limousin beef breed from the Massif Central hill region in France. Limousin is a bigger breed with better conformation than British native breeds and it has now become the most successful beef breed in the UK.

Petersfield Market by Flora Twort 1933. © Petersfield Museum

When Tim and his father were judging a Limousin herd competition in the South East of England they came across and bought this picture of Petersfield Marketplace in 1933. The picture conjured up great memories for Jack of when he was in his teens, and father and son began to discuss why people loved markets and marketplaces:

• People can see the products on offer and their provenance.

• Marketplaces have a really buzzy atmosphere.

• They are a social and exciting place to do business.

• They are a mechanism for establishing a fair price.