The trainee chefs of Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Cornwall restaurant have enjoyed time away from the heat of their busy kitchen at Watergate Bay with a visit to the Cornish Pig Company.

Over two days, 18 students in two groups visited the Cornish Pig Company at Tresorn Farm, Bissoe, to find out about how the farm's free range Large Black pigs, a Cornish rare breed, are reared and raised to produce top quality pork, which is used in the restaurant.

After a tour of the farm the trainee chefs got to grips with making sausages before pitting their creative skills against fellow students in a pork burger recipe competition.

The trip to the Cornish Pig Company was the first local produce familiarisation trip that the students have taken part in since the opening of the restaurant in May.

After an afternoon of combining ingredients to make their own recipe burgers all of the students' creations were barbequed before a taste test by the Cornish Pig Company's owners Karen and Nick Stickings and Fifteen Cornwall's Training and Development chef Fiona Were and support and personal development co-ordinator Jodi Redgrove.

After much deliberation and cogitation the overall winner was announced as Damon Murray for his modern take on the classic cheeseburger which combined pork mince with apple, leek, onion and herbs with a gooey stilton centre.

Damon's winning burger will soon be served up to customers at the Cornish Pig Company's Tea Rooms, from their mobile catering van and from their butchery at Tresorn Farm.

Karen Sticking from the Cornish Pig Company said: "My husband Nick and I really enjoying hosting the students from Fifteen Cornwall and it was super seeing them getting really enthused about the way we look after our livestock and produce our meat.

"When we develop new products the process can often take a couple of weeks of trial and error so we were impressed with the standard of some of the students' creations and Damon's burger in particular was a taste revelation that we're looking forward to trying out on our customers soon."

Further ingredient familiarisation trips are planned for the coming months when the trainee chefs will visit Toppenrose Dairy and learn about how the finest ingredients can be found free in nature's larder on a foraging trip in October.