Sheep Industry News April 2024

The lamb was served in the county’s four elementary schools on Feb. 29, so maybe it can become a Leap Day tradition. Students at the county’s middle and high schools had to wait until late March to find lamb on their lunch trays. “Everyone had really positive feedback on the lamb,” Quire said. “Even when I was just cooking it at one the elementary schools, everyone was excited about the smells that were floating around the school. I was pretty im pressed with the kids’ acceptance. I’m sure a lot of them have never even had lamb. We served it like a barbecue day, so it was somewhat familiar, but a little bit different.” Quire has exhausted the grant funds for the 2023-24 school year, but said she would gladly purchase more lamb in the years to come if additional funds are available. Mansfield said he offered ground lamb when Quire first contacted him, but she was looking for something that was distinctly lamb. “She said, ‘I’ve got a whole freezer full of ground beef. If I serve them ground lamb, they’ll just think it’s ground beef. I want them to know it’s lamb,’” Mansfield recalled. “We had to do some things a little different to fill the order, but it was an opportunity we didn’t want to pass up. We sent them some recipes and offered to have (Lamb Ambas sador) Nick Forrest work with them. But Courtney had everything under control.” Given the unique opportunity, Four Hills wanted to make sure the lamb was presented in a positive way that appealed to the children’s tastes. “This was going to be an introduction to lamb for a lot of these kids, so we wanted to make a good impression,” said Four Hills Vice President Lynn Pruett. “It was a great op portunity to educate new eaters about this tasty food. We

were really impressed with the amount of preparation she put into it. As adults, we don’t always have the best impres sions of school meals. We just think of them opening a big vat of something and dumping it out. We definitely didn’t want to turn a whole group of kids off of lamb. But we couldn’t be happier with the way they prepared the lamb and the effort they put into the entire meal.” Quire posted about the special meal on the Woodford Co. Schools Food Service Facebook page and tagged Four Hills Farm in the post to bring even more attention to the special meal. The post included photos of the lamb prepa ration and the final lunch as it was served to the district’s elementary school students. “We were thrilled with the Facebook post,” Pruett said. “She didn’t tell us about that ahead of time, so we saw it at the same time everyone else did. It was so nice of her to tag the farm in the post and bring more attention to our lamb.” Processing lambs specifically for the order left Four Hills with additional meat to sell, including high-end cuts such as the racks. “That opened some new doors and opportunities for us because most of our lamb goes to Whole Foods,” Pruett said. “We haven’t always done a good job of reaching out to other markets, but with the extra lamb we got into a couple of restaurants. We appreciate that this opportunity pushed us into some new markets, as well.”

April 2024 • Sheep Industry News • 15