Scottish Butchers Excel at Prestigious Smithfield Awards

A group of Scotch Butcher Club members are celebrating after scooping a raft of awards at the recent 2017 Smithfield Awards, an annual national product evaluation showcase contested by Q Guild butchers nationwide.

Davidsons Specialist Butchers, based in Inverurie, lifted two diamond awards and seven gold awards with Falkirk-based Patricks of Camelon clinching the burger class diamond award for its Lamb & Mint Burger as well as picking up eight other gold awards.

Buckwells of Southsea clinched a best in class diamond award in the speciality sausage category with its Winter Glow Sausage and also came away with another eight awards.

A special award for the Best Scotch Beef PGI Product, sponsored by the Scotch Butchers Club run by Quality Meat Scotland (QMS), was won by Surrey-based butcher, James of Shepperton with their Steak Burgundy. They also notched up nine golds awards. 

John Lawson Butchers in Uphall picked up the special award for the Best Scotch Lamb PGI Product, also sponsored by the Scotch Butchers Club run by QMS, with its gold award-winning Herb Marinated Rack of Lamb, a kitchen-ready product.

John Lawson Jnr said: “This is a new product which we have been developing and fine tuning for some time, and our customers love it.

“The lamb comes from our own family farm in Bathgate, run by my uncle Russell Lawson, so we have total control over quality, coupled with full traceability.”

Open to the Q Guild’s 123 members nationwide, the 2017 Smithfield Awards attracted a record entry of almost 600 individual products from 61 butcher businesses across the country.

A total of 267 gold awards winners emerged this year across the Q Guild’s eight regions. Judged blind by independent panels of international food and meat industry experts, products were then shortlisted for the national final in each of the ten product categories.

Graeme Sharp, QMS Marketing Executive, who sat on the judging panel of the Best Scotch Beef PGI Product and the Best Scotch Lamb PGI Product Awards, said that it was difficult to pick winners this year as the quality was so high.

“The products I judged this year were really a cut above the rest when it came to quality and taste,” said Mr Sharp.

“It is fantastic to see the skill, craftsmanship and innovation of butchers and this, coupled with the fantastic taste of products which comes from using great quality ingredients, such as Scotch Beef PGI and Scotch Lamb PGI, points to a bright future for the industry.”

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