Ladies in Pigs (LIPs) has won this year’s David Black Award, the highest honour the British pig industry has to give.

[gallery type="slideshow" ids="https://d34wkqkcvmkqx1.cloudfront.net/CMS/s3/ymg-library/web/images/2014/11/LIPs-Liz-Truss-e1415200026485.jpg|The 2015 David Black Award Ladies in Pigs with Minister Liz Truss at the presentation breakfast,https://d34wkqkcvmkqx1.cloudfront.net/CMS/s3/ymg-library/web/images/2014/11/D-Black-presentation-e1415200183906.jpg|LIPS chairman, Sue Woodall receives the David Black Award for Ladies in Pigs from Farming Minister George Eustice (right) and BPEX chairman Stewart Houston.,https://d34wkqkcvmkqx1.cloudfront.net/CMS/s3/ymg-library/web/images/2014/11/Charles-and-Ilona-e1415200162678.jpg|Charles Baughan, with his wife Ilona, with their Sausage Oscar Award."]

The Award was presented to LIPs chairman Sue Woodall by Farming Minister George Eustice at an industry breakfast, held in the House of Lords.

Sue said: “It is a real honour for us to be recognised by the industry but it really has been a tremendous team effort and once the members realise the magnitude of it, I’m sure they will be absolutely delighted.

“All the members, and we now have about 300, are absolutely passionate about promoting British pork.”

LIPs members have a packed schedule of touring shows, supermarket car parks, school and any other venues where they can extol the virtues of British pork using a flamboyantly coloured mobile kitchen. Most of the members are also trained judges for competitions involving pork and pies.

At the event the Sausage Oscar, for services to bangers was presented to Charles Baughan of Westaways Sausages. He has grown the firm from one that provided top quality sausages to the South Devon area to a global sausage supplier.

He said: “In the current economic climate businesses have been encouraged to think about exporting and I have been lucky enough to be helped into this by organisations such as UKTI (UK Trade & Investment) and BPEX.

“I think I have helped markets across the world to discover Britain’s greatest sausages and at the same time been to some wonderful places with trade missions and of course met some interesting people.”

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.