Christmas and New Year is always a busy time of year, but this year has been spectacularly busy.  Thank you to all our loyal customers and friends.  We hope Dalbeattie Fine Foods helped make your festive meals extra-delicious this year.

Haggis, haggis, haggis and more haggis is what we’ve been thinking about this month.  The 250th anniversary of Robert Burns’ birth and all the Homecoming Scotland 2009 celebrations mean that demand for our Champion Haggis has rocketed.  This is of course fantastic news and it’s been a great start to the year in what is normally a quiet timefor butchers.

There’s been interest from around the globe in our Champion Haggis this year – if you spot a mention of the Dalbeattie Fine Foods haggis anywhere do let us know – we’ll be putting a summary of haggis stories up on the blog soon.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/player/?item=44534924

Here’s a copy of the press release that the Scottish Federation of Meat Traders issued about our win:

Winner in a million

The odds against this are approaching a million to one but Dalbeattie butcher Alan Elliot has lifted his third Scottish title in two years. Already the reigning Scottish Champion for the best Traditional Steak Pie and Scottish Haggis Champion the Irishman, who only set up in business in 2004 on his 19^th birthday, has now added the Scottish Black Pudding title to his string of awards. Needless to say this has never been done before.

His Black Pudding was judged for appearance, texture, seasoning, taste and appeal. At the end of the competition organised by the Scottish Federation of Meat Traders the Dalbeattie pudding turned out to be another Chieftan. Dalbeattie Fine Foods were first, established them as the best in the South West of Scotland, and then after sending mystery shoppers into all five Regional Champions, a panel of experts at Food Innovation Abertay University decided the Dumfries and Galloway black pudding was the nation’s best.

Alan Elliot hails from Cookstown in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland and had worked in a local butchers business there from the age of 15 before crossing the water to take on the shop in Dalbeattie.

Awards won by:- Dalbeattie Fine Foods:

2007 South West of Scotland & National Traditional Butchers Steak Pie Champion,

2007 South West of Scotland & National Haggis Champion,

2008 South West of Scotland & National Black Pudding Champion,

“Black Pudding has a cult following in Britain” said Jim Fox of contest sponsors Dalziel Ltd “and I would anticipate lots of potential visitors will be reaching for their road atlas.”

Douglas Scott, Chief Executive of the organisers SFMTA added:-

“This competition is hotly contested and to be the top prize winners again is absolutely unbelievable. Alan can take great pride from his achievements, they are certainly unique. Such success is not down to good luck, good meat products are a sign of a good butcher.”

Alan Eliott of Dalbeattie Fine Foods said he was delighted to now have a hat-trick of Champion products:-

“I’m quite shocked to have won again, but very, very pleased.  Developing my recipes is a labour of love and something I’m passionate about.  These awards really do set the standard for excellence in meat products, as can be seen from the high numbers of entries they receive and the prestigious names on their past winners lists.  I spend a long time fine tuning my meat products, so I’m delighted that the judges of all three awards felt my products deserved National Champion status.

“With all my traditional meat products I’ve tried to get to the heart of the products, to rediscover their roots and to identify what made these products so popular and what has given them such longevity.  I’m very pleased with the recipes I’ve developed, and chuffed to bits that my customers and the judges enjoy my products so much.”

We have added to our Frequently Asked Questions that all meat can be frozen as it is all produced fresh, this will allow customers to place larger orders and avail of the free delivery on orders over £100.

We had a terrific time at the Royal Highland Show with a lot of new and existing customers giving us lots of support and encouragement. Keep logging on, thanks for all the support to date