Butchersfair

All customers who visit the shop between the 25th-31st will receive a free raffle ticket with their purchase and the lucky winner will receive a mixed meat hamper. Butchery manager and master butcher Gavin Keel will announce the winner on 31 March.

"National Butchers' Week is a great opportunity for us to bang the drum for the local butcher and remind people that we are here to help," said Gavin

"Your local butcher has knowledge about meat that you won't find anywhere else. We want to encourage people to tap into that knowledge, learn more about meat and, most importantly of all, learn how to cook it and enjoy it at home."

Blackmore Vale Butchery will also be doing a weeks special on sausages, with customers able to purchase 5lb sausages for £12 to help celebrate National Butchers' Week.

>> Visit Blackmore Vale Butchery Website

Highlights include butchery lessons by the shop's star apprentice Kyle Mottram - who is a British contender for the International Young Butcher of the Year title. Kyle and his colleagues will show visitors how to make sausages and bone lamb, in regular daily sessions between Monday 26 March and Sunday 1 April.

Children and adults will also be invited to play a "Pin the Cuts on the Cow" interactive game, using a model cow that has been kindly donated to the shop by the local Young Farmer's Association.

There will also be question and answer sessions with Keelham's 25-strong team of master butchers, who between them, combine over 200 years' of knowledge.

Finally, the shop will use National Butchers' Week as the launch pad for its "Royal Diamond Jubilee Sausage Competition". Customers will be invited to create a new sausage flavour that they think is fit for royalty, to mark the celebration of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee this June.

The winner will win 10lbs of their sausage plus a case of champagne and a £50 Keelham voucher. Keelham will also be selling the winning sausages on its Butcher's counter, and will send a pack of the winning Royal Diamond Jubilee Sausages to the Queen.

>> Visit Keelham Farm Shop Website

The masterclasses, which will take place at each of the company's shops, will feature live lambs to demonstrate how animals are selected to ensure good quality meat.

There will also be a meat cutting and cookery demonstration with tasters and opportunities to put questions to master butchers.

Attendees of the masterclass will receive 10% OFF any lamb purchases on the day.

The events will take place at:

• 27th March - Countrymans Choice 3.30pm
• 28th March - Fermoys, Newton Abbot 2.30pm
• 29th March - Darts Farm, Topsham 2.30pm & Minehead 2.30pm
• 30th March - Dulverton 2.30pm & Budgens, Cheddar 2.30pm
• 31st March - Puxton Park 2.30pm & Taunton 2.30pm

>> Visit Gerald David & Family Butchers' Website

Rosie Watkins said: "We've got a good customer base already, but with the ever increasing interest in people wanting to learn more about meat and butchery, we think that these free masterclasses not only maintain our position of being a high quality, smart and modern retailer, but might also just pull more people into the shop.

"This event will undoubtedly pep up the fun feel for the visitors to our butchers. Also, and very importantly to us, it gives us the time to celebrate the true ability of our staff, and it gives them a platform to demonstrate the intricate skill they have honed over decades of work related training and practice."

In conjunction with National Butchers' Week 25, Essex butcher Meatline Ltd will be running a competition for local schools to invent a sausage recipe.

Ten pupils and an accompanying teacher from the winning school will have the opportunity to make sausages to the winning recipe and take some home for tea.

Meatline will sell the winning sausage in the shop. It also hopes that all participating schools will serve the winning sausage at least once. The winner will be judged on creativity and saleability.

To enter the competition please speak to Wesley or Lee  01621 855777

Closing date for entries is 30th March 2012

Speaking at the official launch of the week at the Foodex exhibition in Birmingham, Baker said: "As you all know, retail butchers are a vital part of a healthy high street. Not only do they offer an excellent product, but they offer advice and knowledge about meat, which customers just cannot get anywhere else."

"With lots of families struggling to keep bills down, having experts who can advise on cheaper ways to cook has never been more important. Butchery can also offer a fantastic opportunity for youngsters to learn a skilled trade.

"National Butchers' Week gives us all the opportunity to celebrate butchers' skills and importance to the community. There are events planned at butchers' shops up and down the country and it sounds like it is going to be a great week."

As always, UK butchers have risen to the challenge and organised some innovative and educational events for the week. Keelham Farm Shop, for example, has organised school visits, which will include a game of ‘pin the cuts of meat on the cow'. Butcher Lee Scott will also take part in a special ‘Ask the butcher' event, with customers able to ask questions on everything from cheap cuts to culinary tips.

Both Prince and Son's Family Butchers in Woking, Surrey and Meatline Ltd in Essex will be running sausage competitions, while West Country butchers Gerald David & Family will be holding spring lamb masterclasses, involving a meat cutting and cookery demonstration, at its various shops.

Blackmore Vale Butchery, in Dorset, is holding a raffle, with all customers to the shop during the week being given a free raffle ticket, with the chance to win a mixed meat hamper.

Butchery manager and master butcher Gavin Keen said: "National Butchers' Week is a great opportunity for us to bang the drum for the local butcher and remind people that we are here to help,"

"Your local butcher has knowledge about meat that you won't find anywhere else. We want to encourage people to tap into that knowledge, learn more about meat and, most importantly of all, learn how to cook it and enjoy it at home."

The week has also earned the support of Channel 4's The Fabulous Baker Brothers star Henry Herbert, who has agreed to be the face of this year's National Butchers' Week consumer campaign.

"I think National Butchers' Week is a great thing for butchers to get involved with, because the more people who get on the back of the bandwagon, the bigger impact it has," said Henry.

"It takes people to stand up and be noticed. As a butcher with my own shop, I like to be vocal and have an opinion and the more people that shout about it, the more notice it gets."

National Butchers' Week 2012 is being sponsored by Eblex, Bpex, Hybu Cig Cymru - Meat Promotion Wales (HCC), Lucas Ingredients, Gordon Rhodes (Dalesman) and Trunet. Other trade associations supporting the week include the National Federation of Meat & Food Traders, the Scottish Federation of Meat Traders Association and the Q Guild.

With the country's focus on the Chancellor's Budget, and the need to boost employment and get the economy moving, a new report has revealed the great scope of opportunity for young people within the independent butchery arena.

According to a survey carried out to support National Butchers' Week (25-31 March), around two-thirds of butchers are facing succession difficulties and are crying out for hard-working youngsters to step up to take the trade into the next generation. The opportunities for youngsters to enter a thriving sector, and learn genuine master craftsman skills has never been stronger; sales within the independent meat trade are booming as consumers look to the expert advice from butchers for cheaper, but tastier cuts of meat.

>> Read full article on meatinfo.co.uk

Venue: NEC Birmingham
Date: Sunday 25th March 2012
Time: 11.30am

>> Register for entry to Foodex