ABERGAVENNY BUTCHER’S INGREDIENTS FOR SUCCESS

A South Wales butcher has achieved a lifetime ambition after one of his sausages, “26 years in the making”, was voted the best in Wales.

The mouth-watering culinary delight created by Paul Bishop, who owns Rawlings, the butcher’s shop in Abergavenny, won the National Supreme Champion of Wales award for sausages at the recent Royal Welsh Show.

The sausages are now triumphantly on sale in his shop in Market Street and called the Grand Slam Banger, in honour of Wales’ rugby success earlier this year.

The delighted butcher said the win was the culmination of years of dedication to the craft of sausage making which he had practised since he began creating them 26 years ago.

And he revealed one secret ingredient to his success - a long-time relationship with the same firm of accountants and professional advisors, Broomfield and Alexander, who had acted as his behind-the-scenes partner for most of those years, whilst he developed his business “front of house”.

“Broomfield and Alexander have definitely been a key ingredient in the success of Rawlings,” he said.

“With them taking care of the financial side of the business, I’ve been able to concentrate on the shop and on creating sausages. If I need Broomfield and Alexander, they are always there.” Paul bought Rawlings in 1976, aged 23, and over almost 30 years has built it up to employ five staff. At any one time, he can have 34 varieties of sausage on sale in the shop, including Spanish chorizo, tomato and mixed game.

“I’ve won almost 100 awards for my sausages over the years since 1992 when I began entering competitions,” said Paul, “But I’ve never been the National Supreme Champion of Wales, which was always my aim.

“I have been working on the Grand Slam Banger for the best part of 14 months, but really it’s the culmination of 26 years’ experience. I’m so pleased to have won it. It’s like winning an Olympic Gold Medal. I can retire now!”

Malcolm Thomas, Director of Broomfield and Alexander said, “I can only add my congratulations to Paul for this fantastic achievement. It’s very rewarding to have been able to play a part in his business over such a long time and see him reach this height of success. Our business services team specialise in managing the back room functions for our clients, we ensure we fully support business owners leaving them free to concentrate on running their business and achieving successes such as this award for Paul”

Whilst Paul is happy to reveal the ingredients of his business success, he’s more cagey when it comes to the ingredients of his prize-winning sausages.

“I use only the very, very best fresh free range pork – there is nothing else used,” he said. “They have to be perfect in every way – and they are!”

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