Goat cuisine: Kid meat is coming to Ocado

It's loved by chefs, ethical, low in fat and delicious. So, will it give lamb a run for its money?

Goat meat is set to hit the shelves soon (Richard Budd)

At last year's Meatopia UK festival, the second annual gathering for lovers of "meat, drink, fire and music", chef Neil Rankin gathered a crowd when he built a long pit out of breezeblocks and roasted 15 kids whole. Kid goats, that is. "We cooked them very slowly over the heat, and then served the meat in tacos with green salsa," he says.

Rankin now cooks kids in his Smokehouse restaurants in Islington and Chiswick. Goat has become one of his favourite meats, but it requires some patience. "It needs to be slow-cooked," he explains. "Even the tender cuts have a bite to them. It's a beautiful meat, and I wish I could buy my own locally."

In a few weeks' time, sourcing kid will become easier, thanks to online supermarket Ocado grabbing the goat by the horns. It plans to stock a range of goat meat products from Cabrito Goat Meat, a supplier based in Axminster, Devon, which sources kid goats from dairy farms across the South-west and also serves the restaurant industry, including Rankin. Ocado will offer sausages, meatballs, shanks, chops, mince and a boned and rolled shoulder joint, all of which should be available by June.

Cabrito is owned and run by former chef James Whetlor, who started selling kid goat to adventurous chefs three years ago. Billy goats are a waste product in the dairy industry, and Whetlor persuaded farmers to raise them for him to sell on. His first sale was to Jeremy Lee of Quo Vadis in March 2012; he knew from his time working in kitchens that there was a demand for less common meats, and Whetlor was soon supplying restaurants in the capital including St John and Bocca di Lupo. Today he supplies 60 or 70 well-known establishments, and Antonio Carluccio and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall are among his fans.

In some ways, it's strange that supermarkets are only now dipping a hoof into the goat-meat market – it's probably the most widely eaten of all meats, geographically speaking, because its consumption is not forbidden by any major religion. Ocado approached Whetlor for his goat, anticipating demand based on the metrics of online search terms and restaurant trends. "Our customers love to discover new products so we're always on the lookout for interesting things," says Andrew Ayres, the senior buying manager for meat at Ocado. "We're in the early stages of adding goat meat to our range as we've seen this as a big trend."

The kitchens cooking goat take their influences from parts of the world where it is eaten readily and frequently. Upmarket and much-lauded Indian restaurant Gymkhana is known for its kid goat methi keema. Bocca di Lupo has served a wild kid goat ragu, while Barrafina honours its roast kid goat with a generous lick of Manzanilla sherry. Goat is on menus at Riverford Field Kitchen in Devon, The Ethicurean and Flinty Red in Bristol, and Aumbry in Prestwich, Manchester.

The Ocado range includes a North African merguez sausage, a French herbes de Provence sausage, Mexican chipotle meatballs and a Greek sausage inspired by loukaniko, which are typically flavoured with orange and leek.

Healthwise, goat measures up: it is lower in fat than beef or pork, is rich in potassium and has twice as much iron as beef. And as Cabrito only supplies billy goats that would otherwise have been euthanised by the dairy industry, which the company describes as a "tragic and immoral waste", goat can be seen as a more ethical alternative (Defra estimates that 30,000 baby billies are culled on delivery each year). "I don't see any reason why in five or 10 years we can't bring that number down to zero," says Whetlor. "As soon as it is available in Ocado, the whole industry will change. I expect we'll struggle to keep up with demand in the first year."

So it's loved by chefs, it's low in fat and it's coming to a fridge near you – but what does it taste like? It has a delicate, sweet and musky flavour, and you can do anything with it you might try with spring lamb. Kid meat is to goat as lamb is to mutton. So if you fancy trying something different, what are you waiting for? It's time to get your goat.