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A premium duck down sourced from the Heilongjiang and Hebei provinces in North East China.
Our audit showed that the down was collected from ducks that were primarily raised for egg production by small farms and smallholders. Reared using free-range methods, the ducks were able to roam outside by day. Local agents would collect the birds when they were no longer efficient egg layers with the birds being sent to local slaughterhouses before the down itself was shipped to a processing plant for cleaning and grading. It was then shipped to our supplier in China. Because these ducks were older than is often the norm (up to 700 days old) and were reared in a free-range environment and a cold climate the down produced was of an exceptionally high quality.
In 2016 we ceased working with this supply chain. The last audit to be carried out was done so in 2013. The supply chain met the key rules of Down Codex in effect at this time time, including no live plucking, no force feeding, and the down being only a meat-industry by-product, and indeed it offered excellent animal welfare. However, from a traceability point of view the collection-based system was challenging and complex to audit fully and its overall size ultimately proved too small for our needs.
If you would like to see the original independent audit report for this supplier then please contact us. The IDFL quality report is still available to view.
