Buffalo meat is the winner

Pupils at Hawarden High School devised a menu based on the minimum number of miles the food had travelled. Before studying the food miles of their ingredients, the pupils found their dishes had more than 37,000 food miles. They reduced this to 1,502, less than 5% of the original, by swapping to the buffalo meat as well as other more local ingredients. The winning menu, which sourced meat from John Sigworth's farm at Halkyn, Holywell, included Indian-style pigeon-and-lamb kebabs, home-made honey ice cream as well as acorn coffee made with acorns. The children replaced vanilla in their ice cream with local honey, an orange in the main course with local gooseberries and used beet sugar instead of cane sugar. Sigworth became a buffalo farmer 10 years ago when his took delivery of his first animals from Romania, and now has a 200-strong herd on his land overlooking the Dee Estuary. He also still farms sheep and pigs. The buffalo and lambs are slaughtered near Wrexham and the pigs in Denbigh. He said no animal travels more than 15 miles.