CARDENDEN butchers, Andrew Kirk, is helping to keep haggis on the menu far beyond Burns Night after securing a shower of glittering honours in the latest round of national industry awards.

The Station Road butchers secured a Gold Award for both their Pork Sausage with Haggis and Pepper Sauce and their Lean Fire Cracker Stir Fry, in the Scottish Craft Butchers Haggis/Pork Products Awards 2019 - marking them as being among the best of their type in Scotland.

Andrew Kirk also lifted two Silver Awards - for their Beef Olives with Haggis and Whisky Sauce and their Pork and Apple Meatballs in Tomato Sauce.

Delighted owner Andrew Kirk said it was always difficult to come up with new ways to present haggis to a loyal customer base keen to try something new and exciting.

"We're also very demanding of ourselves," he said. "We want to develop new products that will catch their eye.

"These award-winning products are the result of a joint effort by all the staff in devising and developing them. We make our own haggis which sells well all year round so it makes sense to try and create products that incorporate Scotland's national dish especially for this latest round of awards".

"Pork is also a big seller for us so we're delighted to see our new ideas do well," he added. "It's great to be judged by our peers and the industry and shown to be good at what we do."

Andrew Kirk was one of around 60 butchers from all over Scotland who submitted a wide variety of handcrafted products which were judged blind in one of the industry's most keenly contested awards.

Douglas Scott, Chief Executive of Scottish Craft Butchers, said judges had been "blown away" by the innovation and tastiness of the entries in both the haggis and pork products evaluations.

"2019 is The Year Of The Haggis and we wanted to encourage butchers to offer their customers delicious alternatives for their Burns Supper feast and for the remainder of the year," he said.

"Scotlands butchers from the Moray Firth to the Solway Firth have risen to that challenge magnificently and shown the versatility of haggis.

"Judges were impressed by just how novel some of the highly rated products were and they will, without a doubt, see haggis on the menu for many households throughout this entire year.

"This is the first time we have held awards purely for pork products and the response has been tremendous".

"The awards tie in perfectly with Quality Meat Scotland's Selected Pork promotion this month which highlights the versatility, tastiness and health benefits of pork," added Mr Scott.

"Our butchers award-winning products show how versatile a meat it can be in a range of exciting new ready-to-cook ideas to suit the modern consumer".