"What a relief! These are questions that have bothered me for some time, but have never been able to ask at the supermarket. May I shake your hand?"

So ended a conversation that had started a few minutes earlier on a very different note. The customer had hesitated and seemed rather troubled as she pondered the array of beef and venison set out on the market stall.

"Can I help you, madam?"

"Yes," she replied. "Will you tell me how they were murdered?"

It was an honest question and there was no hesitation in giving the honest answer: the beef was taken to the local abattoir about 10 miles away, and the meat brought back to be hung and cut up on the farm. As for the venison, the deer were killed at home; brought straight from fields into specially designed handling pens where they were stunned and then humanely dispatched.

In neither case were animals subjected to the stress of long-distance transport, long periods in lairage or the possibility of halal slaughter without stunning; which is becoming increasingly common in the UK.

Most of us, of course, prefer to enjoy our meat without thinking about such uncomfortable issues.

Yet being aware of them enables us to make informed choices that can influence the way in which our food is produced.

I remember asking our slaughterman one day what he thought about his job; had he become hardened over the years?

"No," he said. "Someone has to do it, and I take pride in doing the job well - in making sure that no animal suffers pain or distress."

Thankfully, he handles a lot of the meat that goes through the farmers' market.

So much for slaughter; the customer then wanted to know how the animals were reared - was the farm organic?

It was, and in many respects it still is, but without the formal certification which carries with it restrictions on the use of veterinary medicines to prevent and treat disease.

"What a relief!"

The customer made her purchase and accepted an invitation to attend a forthcoming farm open day - and the next farmers' market too, I hope."

Jane Merritt

Stallholder at Kendal Farmers' Market