Lashford sausages axed by House of Fraser
“On a Saturday, my husband will run down to them when they run out – I can’t see them driving over from Suffolk to help them out.
“To do this three weeks before Christmas is totally outrageous. This will cost us around £25,000 a year in total, which is a substantial amount of money for a family business.”
Her husband Steve said: “We were told just last week by the manager of the meat department that we were no longer wanted by House of Fraser.
“We had no notice – they just said ‘that’s it, we no longer need you.’ To do it like they did is very frustrating.
“We don’t like letting our customers down so close to Christmas. A lot of them travel from outside Birmingham to buy our sausages.
“We have had a lot of phone calls from customers saying ‘where can we get your produce from?’ and we’ve had to re-direct them to other shops.”
He said the family firm had won more than 100 awards in the last 30 years.
Gina added: “It seems really strange for House of Fraser to have done this at this time of year. I think, after 25 years, we were entitled to better, quite frankly.”
A House of Fraser spokesman said: “House of Fraser has taken the commercial decision to collaborate with Jimmy’s Farm to run the butchery within our Birmingham Food Hall. We selected Jimmy’s Farm because of the ethos behind their high-quality product. We hope this will be the start of many joint ventures.”
The business, run by Jimmy Doherty, is billed as a working farm which offers family days out.
