Ayrshire Bacon

Scotland’s only distinctive bacon cure developed in the richest and oldest dairying area as a cheese-making by-product, using excess whey to feed the pigs. In the last couple of decades, however, it has been under threat from a bacon industry which now relies on the power of polyphosphates to absorb and retain water in bacon. Those who continue to make old cures in the traditional way, without phosphates, have found it difficult to compete against cheap and watery bacon.

At one of the largest Ayrshire bacon curers, Ramsay’s of Carluke, they cure around 140 pigs a week and most of the bacon is sold within a 20 mile radius of the factory. The pigs are delivered live from a farm in Perthshire and slaughtered after a night’s rest. Their contract with the farm, which they have visited to see the management of the pigs, is for a fatter than normal pig, for which they pay a premium.