Fife butchers celebrate pie success

The Buffalo Farm, whose shop is at Bogilly Farm Steading, won three awards in the Scottish Craft Butchers steak pie, speciality pie and mince round evaluation.

They won gold awards for their chicken and ham pie, and their steak, stilton and red wine pie.

Their traditional steak pie secured a silver award.

Other successful local butchers were Andrew Kirk, of Cardenden, who won a gold award for their mince round and a silver award for the traditional steak pie; The Butcher Shop Kinghorn, received silver awards for its traditional steak pie, mince round and steak and Guinness sausage pie.

The competition’s heats were held at Forth Valley College in Stirling last month with more than 280 pies from throughout the country tested for appearance, flavour, filling and appeal.

The panel of judges included experts, food writers and interested consumers.

The event is organised by the Scottish Federation of Meat Traders in conjunction with John Scott Meat Ltd and William Sword Ltd.

Jason Ward, of John Scott Meat, sponsors of the steak pie evaluation, said: “I was delighted to be invited along to take part in the very challenging job of judging the top pies in Scotland.

“Who would have thought a lifetime of eating Steak pies would have come in so useful?

“We are proud to be involved with this event as it is our priority to meet the demands of the

independent butcher and I must say, I was blown away by the standard of pies – what an exceptional showcase of the quality products available at your local Scottish Craft Butcher.”

David Mooney, direct sales manager of William Sword, added: “These awards are extremely important in the Scottish meat industry calendar, celebrating excellence across the board. To receive an award is a fantastic achievement as these winners represent the upper crust of the Scottish meat industry, tremendous given the high standard of produce across Scotland as a whole. William Sword are happy to support Scotland’s independent retailers.”