Mail-order meat companies make a lot of sense, allowing farmers to sell seriously good meat direct to consumers.

Meat’s still a treat. Although consumption may be dwindling, we are still seeing red for high days and holidays.

So check out Farmison & Co (a multi-award winning online butchers, based in North Yorkshire, with a company slogan of’Eat Better Meat’, a sensible approach).

Farmison supply dry aged, hand-cut meat to home cooks and professional chefs, including unusual cuts such as mutton tomahawk, corned beef (but not as you know it) and haunch of venison, reared on the pasturelands of Yorkshire and Cumbria.

We tried their bacon, steaks, burgers and chateaubriand: all beautifully trimmed, expertly packed and with excellent flavour, particularly the venison and caramelised onion sausages and pork rib on the bone.

Their Christmas offerings look particularly good. Not that size matters, but they reckon their pigs in blankets are the biggest and best out there: caramelised bursts of flavour measuring 6-8cm (twice the size of most), made from high-welfare, British outdoor bred pork.

Choose from traditional, truffle & porcini and Great Taste award-winning chestnut, sage and apricot.

Moving on to bigger fry, Farmison is also selling free-range, slow-reared poultry from chef favourite Loose Birds, based on the edge of the North York Moors.

The festive specials are deboned goose, hung for 14 days, stuffed with Bramley apple, citrus peel and winter spice or individual bacon-wrapped turkey parcel with chestnut, plumped fruit and Christmas spice.

Beef is also top-notch. Dry-aged for up to 60 days, from different grass-fed breeds. At Christmastime, their Classic Beef Wellington Box or grade 4 Japanese Wagyu would go down a treat.

A good choice for a party would be artisan turkey, cranberry and chestnut burgers and sliders.

They’ve even thought of the trimmings. Christmas Essentials Box includes turkey gravy, cranberry sauce, bread sauce, Nidderdale stuffing and classic pigs in blankets, while Three Wise Christmas Extras has turkey gravy, cranberry sauce and bread sauce.

Last Christmas delivery is on 22 December, with deliveries made in an insulated box with no signature required.

Visit farmison.com/christmas