Britain’s Best Butchers Converge On Edinburgh For A Sizzling Weekend!

Clarissa Dickson-Wright Judges National Barbecue Championships

Britain’s best butchers will be bringing their best barbecue products to Edinburgh this weekend for one of the top competitions in the meat trade.

The Guild of Q Butchers 2007 National Barbecue Championships, sponsored by The Scotch Butchers Club, are being staged for the first time in Scotland at the Marriott Edinburgh  Hotel on Sunday, June 3. The Scotch Butchers Club is run by Quality Meat Scotland, the red meat industry body for Scotland.

Quality and innovation will be very much in evidence in Edinburgh when 15 teams, representing around 50 individual butchers from as far afield as the Midlands and the South of England, vie for individual product and team championships.

This is the sixth annual staging of the championships – first held in 2002 -  with each of the Guild’s seven regions taking it in turn to organise the event.

A panel of judges headed by television presenter and food writer Clarissa Dickson-Wright will assess the products, both in the raw state for presentation purposes and as they sizzle on the barbecue. Other judges include former BBC Masterchef Sue Lawrence, retired Q butcher Charles McHardy, Stefan Wright, Executive Sous Chef at the Edinburgh Marriott and Laurent Vernet, Head of Marketing, Quality Meat Scotland representing The Scotch Butchers Club.

There are six categories of product -  beef, lamb, pork, chicken, sausage and burger. Going by previous Q barbecue championships, the event is bound to produce some innovative ideas which will be shared among Guild members and go on sale in Q shops throughout Britain – literally from Shetland to Cornwall.

Sandy Crombie of Crombies of Edinburgh, Chairman of the Guild’s Scottish Region, is the man in charge:  “We should have almost 100 products forward for judging. Knowing the flair and imagination of our members, there will be some real sizzlers - barbecue products with a difference!”

Main sponsor for the event is The Scotch Butchers Club, the dedicated group of UK butchers who care about the quality, excellence and integrity of the Scottish red meat products they sell to their customers.