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The Smithfield Awards

We butchers love to pit our wits against one another to see who has the best pie, or sausage or innovative product.

It’s a meat thing and it goes on all over the world. Just take a look at the barbecue competitions in the US.

Q Guild Butchers  (there’s around 130 independent butchers shops who make up this elite of British retail meat guild) once a year have an evaluation of their products, which are judged independently and scored from ‘hero to zero’.

Our 2017 awards ceremony was held in the fine surroundings of Ironmongers Hall in London in early February.  We were treated to a hugely interesting talk from food writer and TV personality Tom Parker Bowles who also tasted many products.

Diamond Award Winners celebrate in style

Each category has an overall winner, of course: and one product wins the whole day. This year it was given to a splendid slow cooked ‘Bourbon Glazed Short Rib of Beef’ entered by HG Walter of London.

Now the beauty about being in this guild is that all these recipes are shared with each other. So look out soon for our own version of this great product.

How did we fare at this event? Well, we were pretty pleased to pick up a few gold medals and one ‘Diamond award’ (category winner) in the form of our ‘Marmalade Glazed Ham’ which we roll out on holidays and special weekends.

Our Diamond Award-winning Marmalade Glazed Ham

Here’s what Tom Parker Bowles said about some of our products:

About our pepperoni:

‘That has a real Italian feel to it.
The Italians would come and eat it and get cross if they thought it came from England. Salami is quite an art, just the right amount of fat in it and it has that succulence. That has been a labour of love to get it just right.’

About our Farmers Bacon which is hung for three months:

‘That is incredible; it is not too salty, WOW! That is serious bacon, do you ring up your customers when you have this in?’

And our diamond-winner Marmalade Glazed Ham:

‘In the 70s and 80s we got too used to crap ham!’

We like Tom Parker Bowles!

 

 

Smiles all round with Leah Cripps from Comark (the category sponsor) and Tom Parker Bowles

 

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