Pictured above: Apprentice butcher Lee Barton
Croots Farm Shop has some of the best-quality sausages and pies
in the East Midlands, according to industry experts.
The Derbyshire farm shop, which has its own butchers' counter,
deli and café, is celebrating after receiving four gold,
seven silver and four bronze awards during the BPEX regional
roadshow at Newark Showground in Nottinghamshire.
Croots hit the gold standard with its Lincolnshire sausages,
beef, ale and mustard sausages, the Merquez (beef and lamb)
sausages and the deli counter's beef cobbler.
Silver awards went to the team's tomato and basil sausages, and
its pork sausages, along with its cottage pies, lasagne, mince and
onion pies, steak and Stilton pies and steak and kidney pies.
Croots' breakfast bangers, lamb and mint sausages, and chilli
and lime sausages took bronze, while 19-year-old apprentice butcher
Lee Barton won bronze in the young sausage maker category for his
pork and cracked black pepper sausages.
Lee's prize took the Croots haul to 15 awards in a single
day.
"It's a tribute to our butchers, Rob Tomkins, Ant Griffiths and
Lee, that pork industry experts rate our products so highly," said
Steve Croot, who runs Croots Farm Shop at Farnah House Farm,
Wirksworth Road, near Duffield.
"It puts an official stamp of approval on what we have known for
a long time - that quality ingredients and real expertise are the
key to great local food.
"Our sausages and other meat products are renowned throughout
the area and some of our customers come long distances to stock up.
We're absolutely delighted to have picked up 15 awards, including
four gold awards."
The awards are not the first to have been presented to Croots.
In 2009, the farm shop received a one star gold award in the Great
Taste Awards run by the Guild of Fine Food for its black pudding
sausage. In November 2010 Croots won a silver award for its
breakfast sausage in a competition held to mark British Sausage
Week.
Produced by the shop's in-house butchers, all the pork sausages
at Croots are made using free range Packington Pork from
Barton-under-Needwood near Burton-upon-Trent. Croots has a range of
around 40 different flavours of banger, which it sells on a
rotating basis. The farm shop recently extended its fresh meat
counter in response to demand.
Roadshow entries from all over the East Midlands were evaluated
by BPEX judges using nationally agreed guidelines in this latest
event. The awards promote excellence in pork products and are aimed
at small producers. BPEX is a division of the Agriculture and
Horticulture Development Board and works to promote English pork
nationally and globally.
Croots Farm Shop & Kitchen is open Sundays from 10am to 4pm
(café until 3.45pm), and from Tuesday to Saturday from 9am
to 5pm (café until 4.30pm). It is closed on Mondays.