WITH a golden win under their belt from the latest fine food competition Arc En Ciel are no fish out of water when it comes to their trout.
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The Hanging Rock based business came away with a win from the Royal Fine Food Show in Sydney last week; which has staff grinning from ear to ear.
The business entered a whole smoked trout into the competition, which went on to receive a gold medal.
What’s more, the trout also finished the competition with another win, after being crowned the Champion Trout Product.
Owner Russell Sydenham said the business also entered a whole fresh trout into the show and came away with a silver medal.
The second placing follows on from a silver medal at last year’s Sydney event for their whole fresh fish as well.
Mr Sydenham put it down to ideal breeding conditions at Hanging Rock, along with years of persistence and craftsmanship in delivering the perfect fish product.
“It’s a lot of factors that are all sort of coming together,” Mr Sydenham said.
It’s the pristine conditions we grow the trout in and the good growing conditions and good fresh water.
- Russell Sydenham - Arc En Ceil
“It’s the pristine conditions we grow the trout in, and the good growing conditions and good fresh water.
“We own the catchment so there is no one upstream polluting our water.
“That, combined with lots of hard work in looking after them, and I suppose our expertise in it as well – we have learnt a lot over the years.”
Mr Sydenham said the business also paved the way for a new market in smoked meats, with Arc En Ceil also specialising in other varieties of smoked products.
The business launched The Nundle Smokehouse in 2016, which hs been met with huge success.
“We are producing other meats now, we upgraded our smoke house and had spare capacity,” Mr Sydenham said.
“So we applied to the food authority to upgrade our licence, which would enable us to process meats other than fish.
“I think people are looking for something that’s easy in the kitchen and with smoked meat you can pretty much open the packet and use it straight away.
“Because it’s hot smoked it’s cooked when it’s smoked.”
The local business is no stranger to competition success, with Arc En Ciel taking a haul of medals home from the 2016 Royal Hobart Fine Food Awards; including four golden medals for their flavoured trout fillets and a Reserve Champion Seafood award for their blackberry and vodka cured Rainbow Trout Gravlax.