Ninetyyearson one yard.
How a small village abattoir became a regional trade.
A yard begins.
The Drury family sets up trade at Tockenham Corner — a small Wiltshire village a short drive from Swindon. The abattoir opens with a handful of hands and a single stone floor.
Incorporated.
F. Drury & Sons Limited is formally registered as a company on the 5th of September, at the same address it holds today. The trade classification: wholesale of meat and meat products.
Weathering the industry.
BSE, Foot and Mouth, changing regulation. We ride out every storm without cutting corners — because when the storm passes, the customer still needs a butcher they can trust.
Thirty-five hands, one standard.
Around 35 people work at Tockenham. Many of them have been here more than a decade. In-house Quality Assurance, CCTV throughout, and a modern refrigerated fleet serving the region.
From farm to dispatch.
Every animal is tracked from arrival to dispatch — a traceability system we maintain in-house rather than outsource. CCTV runs across all aspects of production and is monitored by a dedicated Quality Assurance team.
Alongside external audits, we run internal training and refresher programmes: it's the reason a lot of our staff have been here more than a decade — they are trusted to be craftspeople, not just process workers.
