Dylan Gillespie of Clougher Valley Meats, Clougher, Tyrone, has won the Northern Ireland heat of the Butchery WorldSkills UK National Competition.
[gallery type="slideshow" ids="https://d34wkqkcvmkqx1.cloudfront.net/CMS/s3/ymg-library/web/images/2015/06/Dylan-in-action.jpg|Dylan Gillespie in action on his way to winning the heat.,https://d34wkqkcvmkqx1.cloudfront.net/CMS/s3/ymg-library/web/images/2015/06/Dylan-presentation.jpg|Winner Dylan Gillespie (second from right) with (L-R) Southern Regional College's chief executive Brian Doran and judges Chris Jones and Viv Harvey,"]
Gillespie overcame four rivals in the closely contested heat hosted by Southern Regional College, Newry. All the finalists, along with Welsh heat winner Matthew Edwards, of Vaughan’s Family Butchers and the other Welsh finalists must now wait until August to see if they have made it to the final.
The six top scoring butchers from the combined Wales, Northern Ireland and England heats will qualify for the final at The Skills Show, to be held at the NEC Birmingham from 19th to 21st November.
“I was pleased to win the heat because it was my first competition,” said Gillespie, a former butchery apprentice who began in the industry three years ago.
The judges at the event were meat industry consultant Viv Harvey and Cambrian Training Company’s head of curriculum for food manufacture Chris Jones.
Jones said: “The standard was really good considering how young they are and there were some good ideas.”
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
