A pioneering recycling scheme that employs adults with learning disabilities, has proved just how it can turn cardboard into caviar.

The Cardboard to Caviar project, based at Ponderosa Rural Therapeutic Centre in Smithies Lane, Heckmondwike, employs about 18 adults full time in a variety of jobs.

Local food projects Food Futures and Grassroots Food Network were asked to host a visit by representatives from the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to showcase local enterprises and projects, of which the Cardboard to Caviar project was one.

Kath Burton, training officer on the project said: "We have been running the worm beds at Ponderosa for two years and had about 12,000 worms in each bed when we began. The project is run by adults with learning disabilities who collect cardboard from local businesses and clean and shred it up.

"The cardboard is weighed, bagged and used at Ponderosa for animal bedding. Once soiled, it is brought back and distributed in the worm beds. The worms eat the cardboard and make it into compost which is then used to grow thousands of strawberries in inside greenhouses."

Once the worms get fat, they are sold on to to Lepton Fish Farm, near Huddersfield, where they are fed to sturgeon. The fish are then caught or produce eggs - the delicacy, caviar.

DEFRA representatives learned about Ponderosa's innovative work and heard from people involved in producing and selling food about the difficulties they face.

Visits included trips to local farm enterprises and community food projects, followed by meetings with farmers and with others involved in supporting local food work.

Food Futures co-ordinator, Anna Watson said: "This visit by the government has been an excellent opportunity for local food enterprises and projects in Calderdale and Kirklees to share our experience of local food work with people in a position to recommend more supportive government policies.