The AOF Berkabaw Hog represents our 6 year effort thus far to raise “The Perfect Pig.” We cross the purebred Ossabaw Island and English Berkshire to several ratios to achieve particular outcomes.  One outcome is that the Berkabaw brings many of the marvelous qualities of the Ossabaw into the marketplace at price points that can work for the restaurant. We have had a tremendous response from Chefs as the Berkabaw 75 was created initially with direct input from top Chefs.

The AOF Berkabaw is an exceptional quality pork that blends the best production advantages of the two breeds. We gain significant advantage with an increase of weaned piglets due to strong maternal instinct from the Osssabaw and increased litter size from the Berkshire. On the Ossabaw we add depth of body, a smaller bone that improves the meat to bone ratio and efficient hard fat development that has an amazing flavor and texture. With the Berkshire we gain length of body, gentleness/manageability, terrific yield, great fat to meat ratio, short muscle fiber (tenderness) and accelerated growth.

Both breeds are excellent foragers that take full advantage of our Terroir to produce extraordinary quality pork.

In summary the AOF Berkabaw has become our primary focus hog at AOF. The Berkabaw is a terrific fit for its high quality pork and outdoor production efficiency, especially on sites like ours with basic infrastructure. It represents our efforts to bring you the absolute best products at prices that afford you good margins on your efforts. It complements the wonderful Patterson’s Registered Berkshires very well while we reserve the pure bred Ossabaw for specialty events, competitions, and those with heavy cap artisan curing needs like lardo and extreme long cure hams in the Spanish Iberico style.