10-Year Old Duck Keeper Is 'Food Champion Of The Year'

It takes most suppliers years to convince supermarkets to carry their product. For Elsa Amiss it was a simple walk in the (duck) park. Yesterday, this entrepreneurial 10-year old won the 'Food Champion of The Year Award' for her fledgling duck egg business.

In addition to a $20,000 USD cash prize, Elsa also received a contract to supply the chain of Waitrose Supermarkets with her free-range organic duck eggs.

Elsa lives in the small village of Drewsteignton in West Devon, where her parents own an organic duck farm. They supply more than a 100 organic ducks to supermarkets every week.

However, Elsa wanted to do something that did not involve killing ducks and convinced her parents to allow her to have her own ducks and sell the eggs instead. She now has 300 ducks, which live in a tent-like shelter, when they are not foraging in the open fields.

While the business was Elsa's idea, she receives plenty of help from her siblings every day. She and her three-year old siblings Percy and Harold, collect and wash all the eggs. Elsa then grades them by size and passes them on to her 7-year old brother Alfred, who fills the egg cartons. Five-year old Dora completes the process by putting the labels on the filled cartons.

Elsa is quite excited about winning the competition. While she plans to use some of the money to visit Legoland with her siblings, most of it will be re-invested in her business. She wants to improve her production facility, design new colorful labels and increase egg production without compromising the quality - sounds like a truly seasoned businessperson!

Sources: Telegraph.co.uk, scotsman.com