Learners Visit To Philip Warren Butchers and Native Burger
On Thursday 17th October the learners from Level 1 Catering, Hospitality, and Tourism and Level 2 Catering Skills had the opportunity to visit Philip Warren Butchers and Native Burger in Launceston.
Wow and didn’t we learn so much! We had a talk from Luke from Philip Warren and we learnt that they supply the top 10% of restaurants in the country, some of these big names include Blacklock, Pasture, The Ledbury and Paul Ainsworth.
Their meat is transported to London and Wales three times a week and in total they supply around 60 restaurants and 135 wholesale businesses. But it is not all about providing to restaurants as Philip Warren have a hot food counter on Pennygillam that can serve 500 people a day!
Mike then took us for a tour around the factory and we learned about the many different cuts of meat and dry aging. It was interesting to note that supermarket meat is generally aged for 18 days but Philip Warren supply dry-aged meats from 40 -100 days for specialty restaurants. The learners were amazed at just how cold it was in the fridges and they saw how they hang Himalayan rock salt in the walk-in fridges to help dry out the meat and create a good texture.
Both Senior Butchers were apprentices from school and have been with the company 25 years. They currently have 3 apprentices and are currently advertising for more. If you would like to find out more about their opportunities follow the link below.
Our next stop was to see the new Native Burger take-away and restaurant. Luke and Fergus have opened this up after 20+ years working in hospitality together for Rick Stein. The aim of the restaurant is to provide quality burgers to Launceston whilst embracing green and local ideologies.
Of course, their meat is from Philip Warren but their buns are made by Baker Tom and there are vegan and vegetarian options available too! All other services needed to run the business are also sourced as locally as they can, from fitting out the new restaurant to purchasing cooking oil and recycling it.
Some of the questions asked by our learners were:
How do you prevent hazards and accidents from happening? How have you found focussing on quality rather than quantity? It must get loud having an open kitchen in the restaurant, how does it affect the restaurant atmosphere?
We would like to send a massive thank you to Luke, Mike, Ian, Fergus and the rest of the team for a very informative and interesting morning. Thank you.
