DUCK
OUT-AND-OUTFOR A
DUCK
Duck is a hot favourite on restaurant menus and proving
just as popular for home consumption with the market
growing rapidly. Tessa Gates visits Green Label Foods,
producers of Gressingham duck
The Gressingham duck – a wild mallard/Pekin cross – has been bred for flavour, tenderness, lower fat content and a generous proportion of breast meat for size of carcass, a most important characteristic for the home market.
"For every two breasts, we sell one leg," says William Buchanan, sales director of family-owned Green Label Foods, Loomswood Farm, Debach, Suffolk.
"The challenge is to sell the carcass in equal proportions." The company sells 2.5m ducks a year – half through wholesalers and catering butchers and the rest through retailers, either fresh or as ready meals.
"Sainsburys best seller is two duck breasts with orange. People are confident with it, they dont want to deal with a whole bird," he says. The company also provides point-of-sale recipe leaflets and all packs of duck bear clear cooking instructions.
"The future is in cut birds. Only the most upmarket hotels want a whole duck," William says.
Leg, rather than breast, is considered the prime cut in France and Gressingham Duck legs are exported there along with livers, which are used for pate. The feet go to the Far East where they are eaten and the feathers are sold locally. "We still cant find anything to do with the beaks and tongues.
"The French produce 60m ducks a year, they are our biggest competition and the exchange rate has been against us," adds William.
* Parisian customer
"Even so, we have a customer in Paris who takes our breast meat. The French produce Barbary duck that weighs about 5kg but are quite tough. Our ducks are about 3kg but are more tender.
"Our business has grown in excess of 30% a year. We havent got enough birds to export much yet, but we are taking away from imports."
The Buchanans know the poultry market well. Williams parents, Maurice and Miriam, started the family business in 1967 in Northern Ireland on a mixed farm specialising in poultry. They came to Suffolk from Co Tyrone in 1971 and for the first 18 years reared broiler chickens from day old to 6-7 weeks to be sold on to other rearers.
By 1989 they had three good farms, but Maurice wanted to expand the business. "Poultry was never subsidised and I dont believe you can rely on subsidies," he says. "We needed a business that could stand on its own two feet for the next 20 years. British farmers are very good at production but dont think ahead. You have to find out want people want, not what you want to produce."
Ducks looked to be the way forward and in 1989 they started producing Gressingham Duck, paying royalties to the company of the same name.
* Poultry buyer
A year later William joined as a partner having worked for a year in Sainsburys poultry buying team, while in 1992 his brother Geoffrey joined the partnership having gained management experience at Harvest Poultry. Both brothers studied Agriculture at Reading University.
"There were quite a few producers round the country but we were the biggest and bought the Gressingham Duck Co three or four years ago," says Maurice.
Now half the Gressingham Ducks produced are reared on the Buchanans farms and the rest on contract farms in welfare-friendly conditions.
There is a processing plant on site at Loomswood Farm, employing 100 workers with another 10 in the offices. The farms employ a further 40 staff. The elite breeding flocks of pure line birds are kept elsewhere in four separate units but birds are hatched and reared to seven-and-a-half weeks here.
Kept in specially designed sheds, which are high and airy with natural and strip lighting, the birds have plenty of room to move. Stocking rates are one duck to the space that would hold four barn chickens.
"It is expensive in terms of space but more welfare friendly," says farms manager Stephen Urwin. "The ducks are very pleasing creatures to work with. They respond to you."
The sheds feel cool and the birds are placid. "The building was designed for ducks. Temperatures remain about 4-5C above the external temperature in winter and 4-5C below in summer. It is all down to the pitch of the roof."
Green Label Foods has about 12 contract growers at present but needs more in East Anglia. Farmers would need £100,000 to invest and a site to build on for the quality shed Green Label Foods finds most suitable for ducks, or multiples of that for more than one building. The contract offers birds and feed and a guaranteed return per bird.
"If feed prices go up it doesnt affect the contractual return and should market price drop it doesnt affect the grower – in the short term," says Stephen. He adds that growers should get a 20% return on investment depending on labour costs.
A minimum shed size of 12,000sq ft stocks 5500-6000 ducks with new stock every nine weeks, which allows 10 days between batches for cleaning, throughout the year. A shed this size takes as little as two hours/day labour and birds are delivered and collected by Green Label Foods staff.
"Our main growth has been with farmers wanting to add to their main enterprise, and year-round production and good cashflow can strengthen their general enterprise," says William. "We are looking to grow through contractors so that we can concentrate on our strengths of breeding, processing and marketing Gressing-ham Ducks."
Inquiries: E-mail
stephen.urwin@greenlabel.co.uk or phone 01473-735456.
Wing-men…Maurice Buchanan (right) started Green Label foods with his wife, Miriam, and sons William (above) and Geoffrey have joined the partnership.
Duck breast fillets with apple and blackcurrant sauce
4 Gressingham duck fillets
Salt and pepper
1 large cooking apple, sliced finely
4 tablespoons best quality blackcurrant jam
Prick the skin of the duck breasts with a fork and rub in one teaspoon of salt.
Heat a frying pan on a hot ring and place the breasts in their skin side down to cook for five minutes. Turn the heat down to medium, turn the fillets over and cook for a further five minutes. Remove the duck and keep warm.
Add the sliced apple and blackcurrant jam to the pan and stir until the apple is cooked and the sauce is smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.
To serve, slice the duck breasts and arrange on a heated plate, pour sauce over and around, serve with mashed potatoes and vegetables, garnished with watercress.
Confit of duck
4 Gressingham duck legs
8 cloves garlic
thyme and bay leaf
200g (8oz) rock salt
10fl oz cheap white wine
Spread half the rock salt in the bottom of a dish. Place the legs on top in a single layer.
Place garlic and herbs round them. Sprinkle with the rest of the rock salt. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Next morning turn the legs over and return to the fridge for another 4-6 hours. Then remove salt and rinse and dry the legs, garlic and herbs.
At this stage they will keep in the fridge for 2-3 days.
When ready to cook preheat oven to 140C (275F, Gas 1).
Put legs, garlic and herbs into a heavy dish, add wine, cover with a lid and cook on the middle shelf for 3-31/2 hours until the meat comes away easily from the bone. Do not brown; add a little water if necessary.
Remove the legs from the fat and put them into a clean ovenproof dish and return to a very hot oven 240C (475F Gas 9) until the skin is really crisp.
Keeping abreast of developments… Farm manager Stephen Urwin and William Buchanan (right) in one of the specially-designed sheds housing five-week-old birds which are just starting to feather up and (above) ducklings at less than a week old.