Institute of Meat award winners unveiled

The event, which took place at Painters’ Hall in London, was attended by more than 100 members of the meat industry.

Thirteen awards were presented, with this year seeing the first ‘Best Abattoir Worker achieving WATOK’ Award, in recognition of the importance of this element of the meat industry.

The overall winner, chosen from the 13 category winners, was James Taylor of Simpsons Butchers in Sleaford, who was trained by Meat Ipswich. He receives a year’s honorary membership of the IoM and a cash prize of £500. This caps off a great year for Taylor, who won The Marco Peerdeman Award for Young Butcher of the Year at the Meat Trades Journal​ Butcher’s Shop of the Year Awards last November.

Keith Fisher, chief executive of the IoM, explained how James had secured the award. “James embodies tomorrow’s generation of highly skilled craft butchers. For a young man in his early twenties he has already achieved so much; his accolades include a gold medal at WorldSkills UK Butchery competition last year. He is creative, precise and ambitious – a deserving winner indeed.”​

As well as the awards ceremony, eight professional butchers were also awarded IoM Accredited Master Butcher status. They were: Martin McIntyre, Simon Bennett, Sue Winders, Henry McAlonan, Mike Roach, Kevin Culverwell, Arthur Burke and Thomas Hughes.

Bill Jermey, chairman of the IoM, said: “The meat and poultry industry is not only a proud industry, but a forward-thinking one too. It is our mission at the IoM to encourage, inspire and reward; this is at the heart of the prize-giving event. I’m especially delighted to see our colleagues in the abattoir sector joining the event this year. I hope that, with the new abattoir apprenticeship standard now approved, we’ll see more nominations for abattoir workers in the years to come.”​