BPEX National Champion crowned

BPEX National Champion crowned

Greens of Pangbourne has won the title of National Champion of the 2013-14 BPEX Regional Roadshow and Pork Product Excellence Awards for its full-flavoured pork ready meal.

(L-R) Keith Fisher Chris Cripps Master Butcher

The winner, Chris Cripps (centre) with BPEX’s Keith Fisher (left) and Master of the Worship Company of Butchers, Ian Kelly (right).

The announcement comes at the end of a six month tour of the country during which time BPEX met with 214 butchers, sampled 1,396 pork products, awarded hundreds of gold, silver and bronze accolades and recognised five regional champions.

All five champions joined BPEX at Butchers’ Hall to celebrate the end of the 2013-2014 awards season and to find out which of them was to be crowned National Champion.

Champion of the south of England leg of the roadshow, Chris Cripps of Greens of Pangbourne was crowned National Champion for his ‘Chorizo Stuffed Pork Cutlets’ – a combination of locally-produced pork and homemade chorizo. He was presented with an original watercolour painting of a Tamworth pig by artist Chris Pendleton. The other four finalists each received a limited edition print.

Chris Cripps told Meat Management: “We’re so happy to have won this award, we didn’t expect it so we’re over the moon. I’m sure when I get back to work, they’ll all be really happy too. We’ll try to get the painting up in the shop as soon as we can – we’re going to have to make some room for it.”

The Chorizo Stuffed Pork Cutlets recipe was developed after Chris decided to offer something a bit different to a standard chop, as well as create something that would look good in the shop window. Greens of Pangbourne only recently developed the recipe, which uses their own chorizo and locally sourced pork.

Chris added: “Pork chops weren’t selling the best so we wanted to do something different. One of the butchers noted the current trend towards spicy meats. We make a chorizo sausage meat anyway which we use for our scotch eggs. We stuffed the chops with the chorizo mix, crumbed them and turned them into a great product. Every time we’ve made them so far they’ve sold out.”

Speaking to Meat Management, Keith Fisher, BPEX butchery and product development manager said: “We’re now in our tenth year of the BPEX Regional Roadshows; what’s been really encouraging is the fact that I’ve seen it from year one through to year ten and undoubtedly the quality of the products entered has certainly gone up and up every year and that’s got to be to the benefit of the whole industry.

On this year’s winner, Keith added: “The winner is a young man who came along when we first developed the Sausage Maker category several years ago and he did very well in that category. Personally I’m absolutely delighted to see him develop into a fully-fledged butcher now and to take away the overall champion award.”

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