Prince has mutton in mind with new plans
Prince Charles is planning to turn the Queen’s Sandringham estate into the country’s leading organic sheep farm.
The ambitious scheme would see the number of sheep kept on the private estate in Norfolk increase five-fold to 15,000.
The Prince of Wales took over the management of the 20,000-acre Norfolk estate, where the Royals spend Christmas, last year. He wants to boost the estate’s profitability and also believes increasing the flock from the current 3,000 sheep would improve the quality of the soil.
And his venture could be lucrative as demand for lamb has increased and its price reached £6 per kilogram last May.
The Prince has campaigned for wool to become more popular and also launched the Mutton Renaissance initiative in 2004.
His website states he has “long been sensitive to the plight of sheep farmers in this country and abroad.”
A source said: “The overall aim is to make Sandringham one of the country’s leading organic sheep farms.”
Prince Charles already runs the Duchy Home Farm at Highgrove and has transformed the fortunes of Dumfries House in Scotland.
Last year the Duke of Edinburgh produced Britain’s first crop of black truffles at Sandringham.