Top Northern Irish butcher launches butchery masterclasses

Corries, one of Northern Ireland's leading family butchers, has launched a Butcher Masterclass initiative in response to a growing interest among shoppers in food preparation at home.

The classes, being marketed through the company's seven butchery shops in the greater Belfast area, offer participants "a good grounding on traditional butchery skills" and provide guidance on buying meat and cooking the various cuts, according to William Corrie, a director of the family-owned and run business based on an extensive farm near Newtownards in county Down.

"We believe the courses also make an ideal gift for birthdays, Christmas and other occasions. They make a great team building option and can also be used for stag or hen nights," he adds.

Corries is the first butchers in Northern Ireland to develop classes to help consumers in handling meat. The initiative is designed to build on the home cooking trend. Three courses are currently on offer - beef, lamb and sausage - and each costs £65 per participant. On completion of a course participants receive an embroidered apron as a practical keepsake.

Participants on all three courses are given hand-on opportunities to prepare a cut such as cote de boeuf joint, to bone out and roll a shoulder of lamb and make premium sausages to cook at home.

The farm business has also launched a catering service through which it provides pre-prepared dishes for shoppers to cook. Corries will even prepare the required dishes using a customer's own cookware.

Corries has a longstanding commitment to innovation and to offering consumers different tastes using the finest Northern Ireland ingredients. The company ages its beef from the farm in its own Himalayan salt chamber.

Headed by Will Corrie, the family farms over 1,000 head of grass-fed beef and 850 dairy cows on 1,200 acres. Corries opened its first shop - on the farm - in 1977. Popularity led the company to set up in other parts of Belfast as well as in Newtownards and Holywood in county Down.