Butcher of the Year: Great Food Club Awards 2020

October 31st, 2019

Winners

The Snobby Butcher (Johnny Pusztai), Nottingham – Butcher of the Year
Price & Fretwell, Tibshelf, Derbyshire – Catering Butcher of the Year

Finalists

Hambletons, Oakham, Rutland
The Artisan Butcher, Market Harborough, Leicestershire

The inimitable Snobby Butcher (aka Johnny Pusztai and his hard-working team) win our Butcher of the Year Award for their commitment to local sourcing, passion for traditional butchery, and excellent customer service.

Johnny Pusztai

Now the owner of the shop where he used to work as a lad, Johnny and his excellent crew battle hard to keep the customers coming back day after day. One regular customer is Nottingham’s double-Michelin-star winner Sat Bains.

The new Himalayan rock salt dry-ageing cabinet at The Snobby Butcher

Johnny and team also choose their produce with care. Beef comes from a farm in Hoveringham and also from Brackenhurst Agricultural College (Johnny recently bought the college’s entire herd), and lamb comes from a farm in Wellow that Johnny part-owns.

You’ll find a huge array of sausages at The Snobby Butcher in Sherwood, Nottingham

The new Himalayan rock salt dry-ageing cabinet is a great addition to the shop, but it’s the traditional values of locality, friendliness, and farm-to-plate butchery that win this award.

Price & Fretwell wins the Catering Butcher of the Year Award for its consistency, excellent products and superb customer service. A supplier of pubs and restaurants, it started out as a small butchers shop in the village of Blackwell but evolved into a catering business.

Nathan Price of Price & Fretwell (right) with Great Food Club’s Matt Wright

Dry-aged beef farmed in Leicestershire and South Yorkshire is Price & Fretwell’s speciality, but it also offers lamb from Burghley Park Estate and chicken from Church Hill Farm.

The cold store at Price & Fretwell

The other finalists

Hambletons deserves credit for its incredible, highly professionally run meat counters – the latest of which can be seen at Gates Garden Centre in Cold Overton near Oakham.
Hambletons’ display fridge at Gates Garden Centre near Oakham
‘The Artisan Butcher’ (formerly The Meat Room) in Market Harborough is a brilliant addition to the town
A close-up view of The Artisan Butcher’s display
The author:

Matt lives in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. He is passionate about the independent food & drink sector and founded Great Food Club in 2010 after being inspired by local producers near his home town.