Most bacon you buy is wet-cured: pumped full of brine, hung briefly, sliced and packaged. It's fast, cheap, and it's why supermarket bacon often shrinks to half its size in the pan and weeps a milky liquid you don't want to think about.
That's not how we do it.
The proper way takes time
Our bacon is dry-cured. We rub the pork belly or shoulder with a salt and sugar mix, sometimes with a touch of maple syrup or our own seasoning, and we leave it in the cure for days. Salt draws out moisture; the cure penetrates evenly; the meat firms up and concentrates in flavour.
Then we wood-smoke it. Real wood, real smoke, the way bacon was made before liquid smoke was a thing. Each batch takes the better part of a week from start to finish.
Why bother
Because the difference is real. Properly cured bacon doesn't shrink to nothing in the pan because the moisture has already been drawn out the right way. The flavour is concentrated and savoury rather than watery and salty. The fat renders cleanly. And you can taste the smoke - not a chemical approximation of it.
It's also better for you. We make a nitrite-free version, cured naturally with sea salt and time. Slightly less pink than traditional, just as full-flavoured. And our signature Morpeth bacon uses traditional curing for the deep, classic flavour.
Worth the difference
Yes, ours costs a bit more than supermarket bacon. But you use less of it, you taste it more, and you're supporting actual butchering instead of factory production. Try it once and supermarket bacon will start to feel like a downgrade.
