TWO butchers from South Somerset have come away with a golden haul from the 2017 Butchers Q Guild Smithfield Awards.

Barret Bros Butchers, in Market Street, Crewkerne, Somerset, won three gold awards with their Country Pork Sausages, Dry Cured Back Unsmoked Bacon, Spatchcock Lemon Chicken Kitchen Ready Product.

Gary Pocock, manager at Barrett Bros, said: “We were delighted to win gold awards for our products again, it helps make the extra effort we put in to producing top quality products worth while.”

Bonners of Ilminster Butchers, Silver Street, Ilminster, Somerset, won two golds – their Pork with Onion and Pineapple Cold Eating Pie was awarded maximum marks and there was another gold for their Lamb, Mint & Rosemary Pie.

Clinton Bonner said: “We were over the moon to receive a gold award for our Pork & Devon Chutney pie.

"We have had a recent kitchen refit and this allows us to develop new ideas and products. The award goes to my hardworking staff who came up with the idea and developed it to its award winning level.

“We find that the Smithfield awards are judged to a very high standard and to achieve a gold has proved that we are going in the right direction. Eighteen months ago we used to buy in all our bakery products and now we are making all our own; we have seen sales rise by nearly 300% and this recent award will, with correct marketing, push this further.”

Open to the Q Guild’s 123 members nationwide, the 2017 Smithfield Awards attracted a record entry of almost 600 individual products, a major increase on the previous year, from 61 butcher businesses from the Scottish Highlands down to the south coast.

Winners, including best in category diamond awards, were announced at a ceremony in Ironmongers Hall, London, when the awards were presented by acclaimed British food writer and food critic Tom Parker Bowles on February 1. 

Tom Parker Bowles told the butchers: "A town or city without a proper butcher is town without a heart.

"But all of you here today are masters of meat, heroes of the haunch, legends of the lamb chop and you don't do this for the prospect of a quick and easy buck.

"I know exactly how hard you all work, the long, gruelling, often freezing cold hours. The sawing, the cutting, the slicing, the lugging around of great carcasses, the constant attention to perfect hygiene, the sheer physical hard graft, the depth of knowledge and years of pure experience necessary which becomes the very essence of carnivorous good taste.

"Now this might not be or seem like a glamorous job, but we love you for it. What would we do without you? Great butchers are no mere make or trade. it is a part, a passion, a labour of love. It is a community hub and a place, of course, where lots of good gossip can be shared and spread as well.”