Agriculture students show their food enterprise skills

Date published: 14 April 2017

Products ranged from Wagyu beef burgers to a ‘clean eating’ style wrap (with bacon, egg, and mango), Duck Wellington, a Donegal seaweed based pudding and Bramley apple crumble ice-cream.

The BSc degree students are studying at CAFRE’s Greenmount Campus and participate in an innovative supply chain programme with beef and lamb processor Linden Foods and food retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S). As part of this programme, the students visit both Linden Foods in Dungannon and the M&S store at Sprucefield. The students toured the respective facilities and were given presentations on various aspects of the supply chain.

Following these visits, the students are challenged with a project to develop a supply chain for a new food product targeting the M&S customer. They also have to design suitable packaging and create the product for presentation to a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style judging panel comprising industry experts from Linden Foods and M&S and senior CAFRE Lecturers.

The Supply Chain programme is sponsored by Linden Foods and M&S as part of its Farming for the Future education programme. The winning team are rewarded with a visit to M&S London headquarters where the students meet a range of staff involved in food purchasing and new product development. The top three student teams will also receive awards at Balmoral Show.

The winning student team produced a Wagyu burger and comprised Anna Truesdale (Newcastle, Co. Down), Brendan, White (Castlewellan, Co. Down), Claire Windrum (Carryduff, Co. Down), and Thomas Wells (Moira, Co. Armagh).