Meat company invests £30k in industrial kitchen

Etherington Meats, based in the village of Scorrier, has started making new products and stepped up production of its awarding-winning hogs pudding.

Its new kitchen features an intelligent cooking system which can sense food consistency, recognise browning, think ahead, learn preferred habits and communicate with users.

‘Committed to investing’​

Mark Etherington, md at Etherington Meats, started helping the family business during school holidays at the age of seven and worked his way up from the butchery floor.

“It is exciting to see the new kitchen in production making new products that we are adding to our wholesale and retail shelves including BBQ pulled pork,”​ Etherington said.

“We are committed to investing heavily in expanding our business and increasing production to meet demand. ​This will result in more jobs for local people and a greater investment into our wider local economy.”​

The kitchen’s intelligent cooking system, from supplier Rational, was branded as the only cooking system with “five senses”.

Malcolm Ball and Brian Edgeler, from the commercial food and safety department at Cornwall Council, officially opened the kitchen in Scorrier.

'More jobs for local people'​

“We were happy to work with Etherington Farm Shop from the inception of the idea to [building] the new plant and wish them good luck with their new production facility,” ​Ball said.

The butchery business, founded by Etherington’s grandfather, has supplied the Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly with meat for more than 60 years.

In 2013 Etherington Meats created a butchery academy in order to transfer traditional butchery skills to students, chefs, small-holders and foodies.

As part of this investment, the company built an eco-friendly farm shop to sell its meat and champion Cornish drink producers.