A prestigious national food organisation proved they had great taste recently by holding The Scottish Craft Butchers Steak Pie Competition at Forth Valley College’s Stirling Campus (10 and 11 August).
Organisers, the Scottish Federation of Meat Traders, chose the state-of-the-art Campus – which specialises among other things in hospitality and cookery courses in conjunction with its Gallery Training Restaurant which is open to the public – as it had the perfect central location and essential facilities needed to make the competition a success.
258 steak pies, speciality pies and mince rounds (ashette size designed to feed three people) submitted by butchers from across Scotland - competing for silver, gold and diamond awards - were tested throughout the event by judges, which included several FVC students.
All the marks are currently being collated and the winners will be announced on the week beginning 11 September.
Douglas Scott, Chief Executive, Scottish Federation of Meat Traders, said:
"We hold these awards every two years and there is always great interest from craft butchers throughout the whole of Scotland. Entries came from Stranraer to Dingwall and Bowmore to Buckhaven. Good steak pies can attract customers from far and wide and the Scottish consumer appreciates this identification of the best that can be found.
"This was the first time that we have used the FVC Stirling Campus and both the entrants and the judges found the location, facilities and co-operation to be the exceptional."
Craig Anderson, said:
“We are delighted that SFMT decided to choose the Stirling Campus as the venue for their well-established annual competition. It has been an absolute pleasure to accommodate them and to see at first-hand how such a professional national food body goes about its business. I am sure this experience will be of great benefit to our students who were involved in the judging of the pies… and not just because they were able to taste the best steak and mince pies available in Scotland!
“We look forward to working with SFMT again soon.”