A documentary by Digby Oldridge
210:
From Dairy to Dinner
Adventures in ethical meat
210 is eleven. She’s had six calves and given 38,663 litres of milk. Most cows like her end up as mince. We wanted to do it properly.
Meet Jade
Nobody cares more about those animals.
Jade’s the herdswoman. She’s milking before it’s light, with her dog Mac riding along in the cab, and she brings up the calves.
She came up through Young Farmers, where her lambs won a butchers’ award, and she’s at the table at the end. She is at the heart of the film.
Official trailer
Watch the trailer
The story
It started over a pint.
Jon is an organic dairy farmer. Asked in the pub what happens to his old girls when they stop milking, he said the knacker’s yard, burgers and dog food. So they tried something else. One of his cows would get a proper retirement in the field, then the best butchers they could find, a curer and a chef would look after her, and the people who knew her would sit down to eat her. Jon picked the cow. She was 210.
- Years old
- 11
- Calves
- 6
- Litres of milk
- 38,663
- Days in milk
- 1,835
Portraits
210
Photographs by Digby Oldridge.
From the dairy
From the dairy to the dinner
To the dinner
From the director
“When you take an animal’s life, there’s a certain amount of responsibility that comes with it.”
Digby Oldridge, photographer and director
Read the director’s noteThe question
What is an old dairy cow worth?
The film doesn’t tell you what to think about eating her. You see what happened, and you can make up your own mind.