Champion butcher pie-eyed after winning World Scotch Pie title

THE family butcher shop responsible for creating distinctive red, white and blue bangers for last year’s Royal Wedding has been crowned the World Scotch Pie champion.

John G Renicks, based in the Dumfriesshire village of Thornhill for 25 years, fought off competition from almost 90 rivals to seize the crown.

Although the family-run business has won eight previous prizes in the World Scotch Pie Championships, this is the first time it has claimed the top honour.

The shop, based on Drumlanrig Street, normally sells around 150 scotch pies a week. But Iain Renicks, 44, who runs the business with younger brother Jim, 41, and mother Ella, said he had expected that number to possible quadruple on the back of the success in the competition, held at Carnegie College, Fife.

As well as the 89 entrants in the main scotch pie category, judges had to work their way through another 120 hot savouries, 66 sausage rolls, 63 bridies, 48 steak pies, 12 vegetarian and ten fish pie entries.

The business was set up by his father John after he bought out a previous butcher in the village. The company previously hit the headlines last April with Union Jack-themed sausages for the Royal Wedding, some 1,800 of which were snapped up on the back of the publicity.

Mr Renicks added: “We’ve entered the World Scotch Pie Championship every year it’s been held so far, and we’ve had a lot of success in the past, but winning the overall prize will make a huge difference to a business like ours.

“The competition has a huge amount of credibility now and there is huge competition to win it, with 89 entrants in the main scotch pie category alone, and the judges coming from within the industry itself.”

Mr Renicks refused to divulge the ingredients or the recipe behind the winning pie, other than to insist that all his meat products were sourced from local producers in Dumfriesshire.

He added: “Most butchers and bakers will try to come up with their own distinctive products and I’m actually the only one in the family who knows the recipe. That’s how secret it is.

“The key thing with a scotch pie has to be what I call its ‘dribble factor’ when you bite into it, but it also had to be peppery with a good crust on it.”

Alan Stuart, founder of the competition, and also the owner of 150-year-old Fife butcher firm Stuart’s of Buckhaven, said winning the competition could make a “huge difference” to a one-shop company like the one in Thornhill.

“We had a winner a few years ago who saw demand for their pies go from around 800 a week to more than 5000 on the back of the competition. Pies are the backbone of a butcher’s shop and are often the most cost- effective product to make.”

Mr Stuart rejected suggestions that the competition – backed by the Scotch Pie Club and the Scottish Federation of Meat Traders, promoted an unhealthy diet.

He said: “Two pies a day are not going to be very good for you, but a couple a week, or a pie and a sausage roll aren’t going to do you any harm.”