Awards hat-trick for Muirhead butchers

The former Scottish Butchers Shop Of The Year secured a Silver Award for its Chicken Highlanders in the Scottish Craft Butchers Haggis Products Awards 2019.

In addition its Pork and Honey Mustard Dish and Pork and Bombay Sausages each lifted a Silver Award in the Pork Products Awards.

Delighted owner Stewart Collins explained that the Chicken Highlanders were devised as just one tasty way to present their own award-winning haggis in different products for their customers.

He said: “Our haggis is enjoyed the world over, we send it as far afield as The Falklands. But we have got to keep coming up with new ideas and new ways to feature Scotland’s national dish - we demand that of ourselves.”

The award-winning product features a chicken supreme with dry-cured bacon, sea salt and crushed peppercorns in a combination around a haggis centre.

Stewart said: “Customers love to see our products do well and this will put some old favourites back to the forefront.”

S Collins & Son was one of around 60 butchers from all over Scotland who submitted a wide variety of handcrafted products which were judged blind in one of the industry’s most keenly contested awards.

Douglas Scott, chief executive of Scottish Craft Butchers, says judges were “blown away” by the innovation and tastiness of the entries.

He said: “2019 is The Year Of The Haggis and we wanted to encourage butchers to offer their customers delicious alternatives for their Burns Supper feast and for the remainder of the year.

“Scotland’s butchers from the Moray Firth to the Solway Firth have risen to that challenge magnificently and shown the versatility of haggis.”