Food sourcing, animal welfare and ethical policy

Animal welfare as well as food quality are our top concerns. All of our meat and eggs are free-range or organic (organic animal welfare standards are at least as high as free-range) and with the exception of our Spanish organic chorizo, all of our meat and eggs are UK-produced, reducing transport. Free-range and organic products also tend to taste better and are lower in fat. If you have any questions, please email us at info@cubana.co.uk

Beef - we use only prime beef from UK-farms supplied by Donald Russell of Inverurie, one of the UK's top gourmet butchers and by appointment to the Queen. Donald Russell's beef comes from a variety of UK farms and transport of live animals is minimised

Chicken - our UK-raised free-range chicken all comes from farms in Gloucestershire and the surrounding counties which supply Freemans of Newent, an established, family-owned free-range poultry company. Freemans distribute to us through Shire Foods, one of the country's most established free-range butchers

Pork - we only use UK-produced free-range pork, raised mainly on two farms, Amberley Vale Farm in Gloucestershire and Plantation Pigs in Surrey. Like our chicken, our free-range pork is also supplied by Shire Foods

Eggs - our free-range eggs come from Farmgate Eggs which delivers free- range and organic eggs on behalf of several farms

Chorizo - organic chorizo is our only meat product which is not UK-sourced. Our chorizo is produced from free-range pigs, farmed humanely on organic land by the Martin brothers in Avila, whose herd of 1,200 pigs roam the lowlands of the Sierra de Gredos mountains. The pigs are fed on a wild diet, balanced with organic maize, oats, soya, and chestnuts

Seafood - we do not serve lobsters for welfare reasons and are currently improving our supply to ensure that our seafood is caught with minimal risk to other species - long line fishing and many net types, for example, catch and kill huge numbers of seabirds, dolphin and turtles. We are also working with our supplier to ensure that our seafood is from sources certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council

Crab-meat - our 100% white crabmeat now comes from The Blue Seafood Company - a family-owned crab fishery which catches all of its crabs in pots around Brixham in Devon from sustainable sources - pot-caught crab minimises the risk of by-catch of other species. The crabs are also stunned humanely using new technology unique to this fishery

Fresh tuna - most of our fresh tuna comes from sustainable stock in the Maldives, where it is caught by the rod and line method - we are working to ensure that soon all of our tuna will come from this source. Rod and line fishing is sometimes called 'dolphin-friendly' as it causes far less damage to other fish species, along with dolphin, seabirds and turtles which can be trapped in tuna nets or hooked on long lines

Prawns - we serve farmed King Prawns rather than the wild species. This is because prawn trawlers kill an estimated 150,000 marine turtles a year, as well as a huge number of other species including seahorses and dolphin. Prawn trawlers typically catch 5-10kg of other species for every kilogram of prawns. Much of this by-catch has to be dumped dead or dying back into the sea. We do recognise, however, that prawn farms also have an environmental impact and we are working towards a reliable supply of organic farmed prawns, which are far less damaging to the environment, or UK pot caught prawns which have a very limited by-catch

The environment and fair trade - because all of our meat and eggs (except for chorizo) is UK-sourced, their 'food miles' are limited. However, UK-sourcing is not an option for our citrus and tropical fruits, although we do buy British strawberries in season. Food miles issues are also complex - trade with the less-developed countries, which produce tropical fruits and sweet-potato, is important for them to become more prosperous; and farming in tropical climates is usually less energy-intensive than in cooler areas, which helps to counteract food miles

We are currently looking at increasing our organic product range in order to lessen the impact of farming on the environment - at present, all of our sugar and chorizo as well as much of our chocolate is organic

We do sympathise with the aims of the Fairtrade movement, but research shows that not enough of the large premium charged for these products goes back to the farmers and we feel that there are better ways to assist them

We do not carbon-offset owing to the large amount of dubious carbon-offset products in the market

Overall, we concentrate on providing fresh and healthy food with high standards of animal welfare, while reducing the environmental impact by moving to more organic products

The above supplier information is subject to occasional change due to non-delivery, or other issues outside of our control