2024 Award Winners ‘NATURAL FOOD’ AWARDS 2024 (PRODUCERS) - MEATS

Higgins Family Butchers, Dublin

Rick Higgins is the fourth generation to run this business and it is no ordinary butchers. How many butchers have a glass-walled dry-ageing room at the back of the shop, where the full carcasses are hung to mature - to be cut and expertly butchered by friendly and informative staff as you watch? Just the place to find those well-aged steaks (including rare breed meats such as Wagyu and Kobe beef) or the perfect Sunday roast, including free range poultry, game in season and delicious pork from pigs that spend their lives outdoors and produce the crunchiest crackling,... Higgins also have a terrific website - very informative, it has loads of information about meat in general (naming the cuts of the various animals, for example) their own meats (all beef, pork, lamb, poultry 100% Irish hand selected from small farms around the country) and the dry-ageing process - which is normally a minimum of 21 days but can be extended to order. An excellent online service includes Family Boxes, Breakfast products and the Sausages range as well as prime meats, all delivered in eco-friendly insulated packaging - and they also offer wholesale sales, so it is no surprise to see the Higgins name now featuring on a growing number of top menus. And ‘And for mains…’, the smashing cookbook that he and chef Gaz Smith of Big Mike’s wrote together is on sale here too.