Meet the Leeds butcher who delivers Tyson Fury's 24 stone of pork, beef and lamb

Phil Bennett, of Bennett’s Quality Butchers, makes the 200-mile round trip to Fury's home in Morecambe every month to hand deliver 24 stone of pork, beef and lamb - the equivalent of 666 average-sized 225g steaks a month.

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The former unified heavyweight champion goes to extra lengths to ensure his protein is free from any substances that could jeopardise his livelihood.

In early 2015, Fury tested positive for elevated levels of anabolic steroid nandrolone.

He was issued with a two-year boxing suspension as a result – and claimed that consuming huge quantities of wild boar caused the anomaly in his test sample.

Phil, who has butchers in Morley, Pontefract, Leeds Market and Horbury, said: “He’ll only get his meat from us. An athlete at his level has to trust the meat. He can’t just get it from anywhere because it could have steroids in it.”

“We know exactly where the meat comes from and how it’s been reared. Everything he needs to know about that meat, we know about it. Tyson’s nutritionist asked us a lot of questions.

“They wanted full traceability back to the slaughterhouse, what it was packed it, how long it had been packed for, has the animal been treated with any drugs, any inoculations?

“Because if any trace of that transfers over to the boxer, it’s world news."

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Drug testing authority UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) recommends that all professional athletes exercise caution with meat and supplement ingestion - and specific warnings have been issued around meat from China, Mexico and Guatemala.

Phil added: “We source from three different slaughterhouses all in Yorkshire. We buy from the market after knowing which farm it’s come from. We send the meat to the slaughterhouse, age it and butcher it. We call it, ‘from field, to fork’.

“The relationship was built on us asking him if he’d want a bespoke butcher about six months ago. We had a meeting with his manager and went from there.”

The protein-heavy diet helped fuel his victory against Otto Wallin in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

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Ahead of the fight, Fury weighed 115kg, but that’s still 35kg short of his mammoth food order.

Fury is slated for a rematch against Deontay Wilder in February after a split draw decision in December 2018.

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Yet rather than all that fat making an already huge man even bigger, Fury’s diet is actually making him lose weight.

His no-carb ketogenic diet saw him lose 10 stone in less than 12 months at the end of last year.

Phil added: “He needs meat with a high fat content so we get him cuts like rib-eye steak, and specific Aberdeen Angus cuts that are high in fat.

“If you’re in kenosis your body whips the fat off of you and uses it for energy instead of carbohydrates.

“I don’t think we can take the plaudits for a man losing 10 stone – his own will power and hard work did that. But we gave him the tools to do it.”

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And delving into just what Fury eats, Phil added: “If you didn’t know better, you wouldn’t believe you could be champion of the world eating what he eats.

“Tyson likes to have large 360g steaks all the time. In his diet he’ll be eating meat, eggs, fish and green veg, and not much else so he likes his meat to fill him up.

“He has a steak first thing in the morning. He likes to feel full straight away. In his words, he likes to ‘eat a brick in the morning’. Tyson likes beef, belly pork, gammon, bacon and sausages.

“He blathers it in mayonnaise and we make him his own Aberdeen Angus beef burgers which have a high percentage of fat. But he’s not overly keen on lamb.”