A West Country premium catering butcher has launched a new range of Quality Standard Mark (QSM) West Country PGI beef for chefs to assure consumers of provenance and guaranteed eating quality.
The new Black Label West Country Beef range, from Devon-based Andrew James Butchery, is fully assured from farm to fork and provides chefs with eating quality guarantees that they can confidently share with their customers.
At a special event held at Smiths of Smithfield, chefs from many of London’s finest restaurants were the first to taste the new PGI assured beef range and hear about the careful breed selection and husbandry from the West Country farmers.
Andrew James Butchery’s master butcher, Steve Turton, explained how the attention to detail at every stage of production of the Black Label beef range guarantees tenderness and eating quality during his butchery demonstration.
The range is not breed-specific, which enables Andrew James Butchery to select the highest quality beef on a consistent basis and in adequate volumes that the catering butcher requires to meet demand from their customer base in London and the South West.
Steve said: “Traditionally, beef production has been very diverse, which has led to a variability in quality, creating problems in the volume of premium beef available to the catering markets. Our goal is to provide chefs with the finest quality West Country beef available, offering tenderness, succulence and flavour.
“What is exciting for chefs about this range is that we can deliver this ultimate quality every time and chefs can have total confidence in the beef’s West Country provenance.”
Ed Green, chairman of Meat South West (MSW), said: “It’s extremely encouraging to see West Country produce forming the basis of an entire range for foodservice. It clearly shows that our product meets the demands and changing appetites of the modern day consumer.
“Establishing a West Country PGI brand for the foodservice sector provides real benefit to producers and processors in the region as demand for the brand grows.”
MSW is a strategic advisory body which liaises with the industry and government on the priorities and needs of a profitable and productive regional meat and livestock sector. The board represents the whole supply chain, from farm to fork, and is committed to the success of the sector.