The firm of TH Stevenson and Sons, of Stanley, near Perth, is the place to go for quality meat – it has just won the 'Best butcher' category at Scotland's Business Awards 2021 competition.

Delayed from last year due to restrictions, the proprietor, Tom Stevenson, said he was delighted to have his hard work pay off. "As a small family butchers, we were pleasantly surprised to hear our name read out as winners," he said. "We are only in our 12th year here in the shop, although the Stevenson family farms – where all of our beef and much of our lamb come from – were started by my grandfather."

Balmacolly and Rashielea farms are well known in the farming industry and are currently farmed by his father, also Tom, and uncles Robert and Leslie. The farm to fork ethos is important to the Stevensons, with customers being able to be fully assured of the provenance of their purchases.

Susan Scott, who work in the shop in Stanley, said: "The first stage of the award process was anonymous – our business was put forward by someone to Scotland's Business Awards, which we assumed was a customer? So, thank you to them if they're reading this.

"We were contacted by the team to say we had been nominated for the Perth and Kinross local awards. After reading up about the awards and the organisation, Tom decided we should accept the nomination and put us forward for the local event for 2021.

"We were then visited by a representative of the organisation who interviewed Tom and got some details about our business. Point of sale material allowed us to promote our entry into the competition and gave customers the chance to vote online or by text," added Susan.

"The competition combines the information from the initial nomination with the organisation's findings from their visit and customer votes in deciding who the local winners are - and for the butchers category that was us! Unfortunately, we weren't able to attend the local ceremony held last November.

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"But, the delayed 2021 grand final awards' dinner was held on March 20, at the Doubletree by Hilton, in Glasgow. In the run up, we were able to use social media to promote our entry as the Perth and Kinross representatives in the final and remind people about the option to vote for us and put our wee shop on the map."

Four butchers businesses from across Scotland were announced as the finalists in this category. Susan said: "We were delighted to find out that we had won the national award, especially as our seats were at a table near the back of a room with over 500 people in attendance and we had thought that they would have the winners up near the front!

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"Bright lights, indoor fireworks, our name up on the big screen and an official photographer all made it a very glamorous occasion, especially as for us and others that haven't had many opportunities to celebrate recently. We were glad our category was announced in the first part, so we could relax and celebrate while others at our table had a nervous wait until the final few categories to find out if they had won!"