It started not in a kitchen, but in a market garden in De Bilt, Utrecht — and it changed the way Philipp understood food entirely.
Working in a permaculture market garden made something clear that no restaurant had: how much care goes into growing something properly, and how rarely that care is acknowledged by the time food reaches a plate. The farmers who take real trouble with the soil, the seasons, the animal — they are the ones who deserve to be at the centre of the story.
That realisation led Philipp into a restaurant that worked closely with the same farm. There he learned the other side: how to respect a good product by transforming it well. How to let the ingredient lead. How cooking in proximity to the source changes everything about the way you work.
"Once you understand what a farm can produce when it is done right, you cannot go back to the other kind."
At De Vuurplaats, he honed what had become an obsession: smoke, fire, and the slow transformation of honest ingredients. Open-flame cooking over acacia and hardwood, hands in the heat, no shortcuts. And then the conclusion, arrived at gradually: that his skills were best used not in service of a restaurant, but in service of the product itself. That is why Red Thorn exists.
The fat remembers what it ate. That is what we protect.
Kenya has exceptional raw material: grass-fed beef, pork from small holdings in the Rift Valley, lamb that has grazed on acacia scrub its whole life. The fat remembers what it ate. The problem is that almost none of it makes it past the slaughterhouse without being turned into something less — something pink, smooth, and anonymous.
Red Thorn started with a hand-built smoker, a second-hand butcher's block, and a simple idea: that this country deserves a sausage made from its own best ingredients, handled with the care they have earned. The first batch went to friends. The waiting list came quickly after.
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Netherlands 01
Market garden, De Bilt
Working a permaculture market garden in Utrecht teaches Philipp what good farming actually looks like — and how rarely it is honoured downstream.
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Restaurant 02
Farm to kitchen
A restaurant working directly with the same farm. Here he learns to respect great produce — and how proximity to the source changes the way you cook.
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De Vuurplaats 03
Fire school
Open-fire cooking in De Bilt. Smoke, hardwood, whole animals. The skills sharpen. The conviction forms: work with the product directly.
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2024 04
Red Thorn opens
First batch leaves the farm. A hand-built smoker, a butcher's block, and sausages made from Kenya's best ingredients — handled properly.
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Now 05
Weekly batches
Made every week, delivered Nairobi-wide in 2-5 business days. The waiting list is a feature, not a problem.
Philipp does the butchery, the curing, the smoking, and the sourcing. One person, one standard. The farmers who supply him — Ole Nkurrunah, Mwangi, the Patels — their names belong on every package too.
"I want to bring quality that is generational to Kenya — to put us on the global map of the best food products."
"Source whole. Season simply. Cook slow. Never dress up what is already honest."
A short list. We mean every one of them.
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i.
Whole cuts, never trim.
Every sausage is built from cuts we could roast as they are — shoulder, belly, leg. Nothing reclaimed or rebuilt from by-product.
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ii.
Five-ingredient rule.
Meat, fat, salt, spice, casing. If the recipe doesn't fit, the recipe is wrong. No nitrates, no fillers, no rusk.
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iii.
Real smoke, real wood.
Acacia, cut on the farm, dried for months. No liquid smoke, no flavouring bottles in the cupboard.
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iv.
Hands, not machines.
Cased, tied, and weighed by hand. The links are a little uneven. That is how you know nobody automated it.
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v.
Small enough to know your name.
We make what we can make properly in a week. The waiting list is a feature, not a bug.
