Arts & Leisure
Posted on 05:23 PM, September 15, 2010
BY JOHANNA D. POBLETE, Senior Reporter
Born free-range
Arestina Morados-Papillon, Pamora Farm, Inc. general manager, can castrate 100 roosters in a day, changing scalpels after every 25 hapless cockerels.
The wielder of the scalpel has to be very skilled so as not to cause any bleeding, and if a bit of the testes remains, the bird is liable to become a "slip," rather than obtain the desired characteristics of a wattle-less "capon" (as the bird is called post-surgery).
Ms. Morados-Papillon is said to work unerringly where veteri-narians fear to slice.
The lady has strong arms, a cheeky grin, and tends to call her husband and partner Gerard Papillon "a bloody Frenchman" when cranky with hunger. (She also jokes about bringing out her scalpel when crossed, which is probably why Mr. Papillon -- who grew up in a Bordeaux farm and knows who rules the roost -- refers to her as the "boss.")
GROWING BUSINESS
The couple (whose surnames make up the name Pamora) met in 1996, and in the course of their courtship discovered an interest in free-range animal husbandry.
The principle of free-range method is to allow the animals to live at their instinctual behavior in a reasonably natural way instead of being contained in a cage like in commercial broiler production where the chickens are forced to grow abnormally fast.
Ms. Morados-Papillon took her first seminar in 1999, intending that the farm she established the next year in Pidigan, Abra would be a source of income for her parents.
By 2002, Pamora was producing 200 units of whole dressed chicken every month, and she had to take a short course in orchard management at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños to be able to manage the farm full-time. By 2008, they were producing 3,000 units monthly.
On Oct. 7-9, at the 17th International Agribusiness Exhibition and Seminars (Agri-Link 2010), Pamora will be introducing its new line of cold cuts. With a brand-new 420 sq.m. dressing plant, the farm expects to increase its product quota this year; in five years’ time, the couple intends to produce 20,000 whole dressed chickens every month.
EUROPEAN STANDARDS
Pamora Farm raises a combination of Rhode Island Red and New Hampshire Red chickens, in what’s referred to as Quality F1 or first generation offspring (in other words, they are the first hatchlings from the parent chickens back in France).
The animal husbandry Pamora practices is patterned after the "Label Rouge" (Red Label) of France -- that is, having the chickens ranging for a longer period to achieve the optimum natural chicken taste, firmer meat quality, and much healthier poultry meat with less fat content.
Chicks are kept for the first 21 days inside humane housing with brooding facilities, vaccinations on Day 22 are nasal drops or eyedrops rather than injections, herbal medicines are utilized rather than antibiotics (or in cases when unavoidable, the withdrawal period is doubled, so as to ensure all trace residue is eliminated from the meat), and feed is selected very carefully. By Day 81 (versus 28-35 days for the commercial broilers), the chickens are ready to be dressed.
Mortality for free-range production is of course higher, pegged at 3%-7% depending on the season against 1% for the very controlled commercial broiler production; but deaths are caused by heatstroke and stress rather than disease, and despite the recent El Niño, Pamora managed to keep mortality at 3%-4%.
The payoff is final product quality. Ms. Morados-Papillon noted that the live weight of Pamora free-range chicken is around 1.8 kilos in the summer to 1.9 or 2 kilos during the rainy season; the dressed chicken reportedly retains more of its meat weight (75.4%) after cooking, rather than registering a drop due to water and fat loss.
IT’S A BIG BIRD
Pamora Farm now has an enviable product roster, including spring chickens (400 g-800 g), regular chickens (1 kilogram and above), "special" chickens (2 kg and above, aged a minimum of 120 days and fed with yellow corn and milk), as well as the capon (minimum of 3 kg, aged five-to-six months versus the three-to-four months in France, and fed 45 kg of yellow corn and 10 liters of milk in its lifetime).
All dressed chicken and chic-ken meat by-products are processed in the Poultry Dressing Plant owned and operated solely by Pamora Farm, accredited by the National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS) and certified Good Manufacturing Practices. Pamora Farm products are all inspected, passed, registered and certified by the Bureau of Food and Drugs and NMIS.
Regular broilers sell (per kilogram) for P240 wholesale and P325 retail, special broilers sell for P315 wholesale and P425 retail, whereas each capon sells for P650 wholesale and P875 retail. When stuffed with foie gras (duck liver) and chestnuts, and oven-baked or roasted by Restaurant Cicou’s chef Cyril Soenen, each substitute turkey sells for P16,000 apiece on Easter, Thanksgiving or usually Christmas.
GRADE AA POULTRY
Capon production -- particularly within a free-range system, a movement initiated 30 years ago -- is a French tradition, and nearly as controversial as the method of producing foie gras. These days, it is a rare delicacy, offered seasonally in France (and banned in some countries, like the UK).
Last year, only 200-300 capons were sold by Pamora Farm in the Philippines; 20 of those were redistributed by Mr. Soenen, who swears by the tender, flavorful meat (because of the high fat content, Mr. Papillon describes the carcass as "marbled," like the poultry version of Kobe beef) .
Pamora also produces seven kinds of bottled pâtè and confit (a combination of chicken breast, gizzard and/or liver) from recipes made by Mr. Papillon’s grandmother and eggs in a lovely pale brown color (P75 wholesale, P100 retail per tray). An organic vegetable garden provides for the needs of the farm’s inhabitants and guests.
WORTH EVERY PESO?
At the press lunch at Restaurant Cicou on Sept. 14, one was treated not only to a
degustation asiette of Pamora egg -- soft-boiled egg with
trouffle moilette on the side, aspic of poached egg with a confit of Pamora gizzard and onion cream on top, and steamed egg with sea urchin and green pea foam, julienned red cabbage on top -- but also roasted Pamora free-range chicken, confit of garlic and shallots, mashed potatoes, and a fricassee of mushrooms and asparagus.
Noticeably, the yolk of the egg was a clear, golden yellow, and solid, not so easily broken. The meat of the roast, handled by an expert chef, was tender, juicy, and with a flavor profile that didn’t need to be enhanced beyond the basic salt and pepper. The skin was thin and crisp and golden brown, the solid bone yielded a healthy red marrow (and the pale-white meat also had a milky quality to it, which could have been an overactive imagination working, as the bird was fed with milk.)
For over a decade now, the four-hectare Pamora Farm has protected a reputation for producing high-quality free-range chic-ken. For her efforts, specifically for promoting French agriculture systems in the country Ms. Morados-Papillon was conferred the rank of Chevalier de L’Ordre du Merite Agricole (Order of Merit for Agriculture, Grade of Knight) in 2008 -- the first Filipino to be so honored by the French embassy.
The farm supplies the deli shops, supermarkets and hypermarkets, and high-end restaurants. The market is niche, with the bulk of production going to Manila, but the farm also supplies other cities, such as Cebu. In 2009, it earned P7 million in gross sales; this year, it expects to earn around P8 million.
For inquiries, call (02) 759-2678. For more information, visit www.pamorafarm.com.
