We’re all excited here at Broughgammon Farm for #goatober. Goatober is an initiative to promote ethical goat meat and highlight it’s story. Since we’ve been farming kid goats we’ve absolutely loved sharing the story about why eating goat is not only delicious but also sustainable and ethical too! Make sure you sign up for our newsletter so that you get all the details.

What’s Goatober all about?

#Goatober is the brainchild of Heritage Radio Network Executive Director, Erin Fairbanks, and renowned New York cheesemonger, Anne Saxelby. #Goatober is an annual campaign every year in October in the US. In 2010, Heritage Foods USA partnered with a dozen goat dairies around upstate New York and Vermont to purchase their unwanted males, who, as unable to produce milk for dairy products, are euthanized at birth. Over 50 New York City chefs agreed to feature goat on their menu for the full month of October including Gramercy Tavern, Babbo, Spotted Pig and Bar Boulud and the campaign’s success has continued to grow to year on year.

Our friends at cabrito.co.uk have made waves running this month long goat-y celebration over in England, First launched in London 2016, Goatober saw over 40 restaurants take part and the launch event raised £6,300 for Action Against Hunger.

This year Cabrito is partnering with some of the best restaurants in the country for Goatober!  The month long celebration of the dairy billy goat meat industry will see events taking place all over the country with chefs from Duck & Waffle, ETM Group, Grafene, Hispi, HIX Restaurants, Manchester Art Gallery Cafe, River Cottage and Temper.

Why is Goat Meat so great?

Not only is goat meat (or cabrito) so tasty-a bit like a tender, sweeter lamb. But it is also a waste product from the dairy industry. When we were looking at the goat dairy industry, prior to 2011 there was no demand or route to market for kid goat meat in Ireland, forcing the farmers to put males from the dairy industry down as a waste product. Crazy! We decided to put a stop to this by buying the billy kids off the dairies and rearing themselves.

The delicious kid goat meat is also low in cholesterol and fat, making it a healthy choice. To top this they are also highly efficient feed converters which means they could play a key role in feeding ever-increasing populations, as well as lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

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Where can I buy Goat Meat?

We sell our local kid goat meat from our on-site artisan butchery here in Ballycastle, Co.Antrim. If you aren’t close by we also can post out our meat-boxes to anywhere in the UK or Ireland just click here to get your goat-fix.

You can also find us at St. Georges Market, Belfast and Temple Bar, Dublin every Saturday!

Goatober on the Farm!

• Every year we have a very special event on the farm. Keep an eye out for updates through our newsletter.

Goatober 2019

This year we are once again delighted to collaborate with none other than James Whetlor, author of Goat and ex-River Cottage chef. He will be here on the 12th October to help us create an incredible Indian inspired feast using our ethical goat meat as well as goat milk and goat butter. To top it all off we have free beer by Goatober sponsor The Wild Beer Co. Tickets can be purchased through our website.

Goatober 2018

For our Goatober 2018 event we were delighted to collaborate with the incredible chef Paula McIntyre. Paula has created and cooked up this delicious menu on the 4th October here on the farm.

2017 Goatober Menus & Events:

2017 Goatober at Meet Me in the Morning, Dublin:

Meet Me In The Morning, winner of Best Café in Dublin 2017 Irish Restaurant Awards, is launching its first dinner event on 21 October for Dublin’s only Goatober event. The menu is absolutely amazing so be sure to grab a ticket while you can!

Other ways to get involved in Goatober?

• Keep in the loop for an event we have happening in Dublin- we’ll be announcing this soon!
• Keep an eye on our Social Media, as we’ll be running lots of exciting opportunities this #Goatober, think limited edition meatboxes, goat related classes and more!

Use the #goatober on Instagram and twitter to share your goat based recipes with us and the rest of the Goatober team!