A lesson in duck from Cherry Valley
Some of the UK’s top chefs and food development professionals were invited to a special duck master class this week, hosted by Lincolnshire-based Cherry Valley duck manufacturer.
In partnership with the Food Development Association, Cherry Valley held a duck training day at its Rothwell Head Office to help culinary professionals discover the delights of cooking duck, a menu choice that’s grown in popularity and offers an excellent alternative to other poultry meat.
Guests were given a tour taking in the farm, factory, museum and new product development kitchens, providing them with an insight in to the origins of duck, breeding, poultry welfare, cost effectiveness, free-range versus standard ducks, in depth analysis of flavour profiles and trends and new product development.
John Feeney, development chef of the Craft Guild of Chefs and Director of Culinary Europe at Griffith Laboratories who attended the day, said: “The day clearly showed duck being taken from field to plate and it was truly inspiring. It gave us a greater understanding of the tight controls that Cherry Valley implement to ensure the best welfare for the ducks.”
Eric Jagger, sales and marketing director at Cherry Valley: “This workshop provided a great opportunity to educate chefs about how versatile and easy duck is to work with and we were delighted to have them visit the various areas of our business.. There is an increasing demand for duck on menus as it’s something consumers expect to see, and as suppliers of Farm Fresh Duck, a higher welfare range of premium duck products, we aim to support food professionals as much as possible in bringing this to their customers.”
Cherry Valley focuses on welfare
Cherry Valley recently launched Farm Fresh Duck earlier this year – a higher welfare range of duck products providing a tasty and versatile option for butchers, farm shops and foodservice, says the company.
Passionate about the quality of the ducks it produces, Cherry Valley says it promotes excellence every step of the way by looking after the welfare of Farm Fresh ducks and the environment they grow in so customers can be satisfied they are receiving the best cared for produce.
The company is achieving this through:
– Giving ducks access to verandas from the barns in which they live so they are free to come and go as they please.
– Laying fresh straw for Farm Fresh ducks on a daily basis and supplying it back to the farms to use as a natural fertiliser.
– Having purpose built pools of water in the verandas so that our ducks can wade, preen and paddle.
– Keeping the duck’s drinking water separate in the barns along with the feed, which contains locally sourced wheat.
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