Time to visit your local butcher’s

Mar 25 2008 by Gwyn Howells, Western Mail

HOW long is it since you visited your local butcher?

Perhaps it’s time to again take advantage of the convenience of your local independent butcher’s shop and pick up tips on how to prepare and cook the best of locally-sourced Welsh lamb and Welsh beef.

National Butchers Week, which took place earlier this month, aimed to raise the profile of the hundreds of local butcher’s shops across Wales that offer local meat, local products and good local service.

It encourages consumers to draw on their local butcher’s in-depth knowledge on everything from cooking times and menu suggestions to the best cuts for certain dishes.

Hybu Cig Cymru works closely with more than 500 butcher’s shops across Wales, providing in-store promotional material at key points during the year, including spring, summer, autumn and Christmas. Throughout the year, HCC supplies butchers with additional promotions, such as innovative, new season recipe books offering impressive, yet easy-to-cook meals that customers can comfortably recreate at home.

The high standards and diversity of the local Welsh butcher was celebrated in early March with the South Wales regional heats of HCC’s butchers awards for innovation and excellence in meat products.

A record 359 product entries were received in the 12 champion categories and they produced a total of 170 gold awards at the event held at the Towers Hotel, Swansea.

Top judges were recruited from all over the UK to sample the speciality sausages, pies, burgers, ready meals and home-cured bacon and gammon entered from the length and breadth of South Wales.

The event produced a good range of inventive products, such as pork, prune and cognac sausages and chilli willi beef, as well as a range of traditional favourites like faggots and peas.

Watch out for the North Wales heat, which will be held on April 9 at Llandudno.

Both events are a celebration of a lifetime’s experience of serving customers with the very best of Welsh lamb and Welsh beef.

Gwyn Howells is chief executive of the Welsh meat promotion authority Hybu Cig Cymru