Simon Howie still a cut above the rest as butcher celebrates 40th anniversary

This year he is celebrating the 40th anniversary of a business that has grown into one of Scotland’s biggest and most successful meat producers.

Their 120,000 sq ft production facility - which started with a 10,000 sq ft plant on land next door to his parents’ farm in Dunning, Perthshire - can now produce up to 20,000 haggis a day, and an astonishing 300 sausages a minute.

They employ more than 130 staff, working on a vast range which supplies the UK’s six biggest supermarket chains daily with products that continue to fly off the shelves - thanks to a hard-earned reputation for quality.

It is an operation that this year is set to report turnover of around £37.8 million, with pre-tax profits expected to be slightly down on the £6.9m, which covered a 13 month period, reported in 2025.

Born into a farming family, Simon grew up among his parents' 100-strong dairy herd on the farm outside Dunning.

“My dad was always interested in the meat trade,” he said. “He got me started as a Saturday boy at a shop in Perth, and I enjoyed it enough that I decided I would make a career of it.

“When I was 19 I took the opportunity to start up on my own. It sounds pretty ballsy now but back then it felt very low risk. I had no employees, and it was just doing what local butchers do, serving the needs of the local village.”

Mrs Lawson was the first of many customers through his doors, with people soon coming from across Perth and the surrounding area to buy his produce. Keen to grow further, an enterprising Simon started knocking on the doors of local hotels and restaurants - “you can sell cuts to chefs that you wouldn’t really get demand for from retail customers” he explained.

Within a few years he had five staff - including Jim Park, who would stay with the business for over 30 years - and was soon supplying Scotland’s most prominent five star hotels, as well as opening shops in Auchterarder and Dunkeld and taking over the Perth shop where Simon served his apprenticeship

“It was great, we were going gangbusters and really seeing the potential to scale up the business,” Simon said.

New licensing laws introduced in the wake of an e-coli outbreak in 1996 led to the business taking another huge step by setting up their own production facility.

“We could see that to have more control and ensure quality we needed our own factory premises,” he says. “It was a huge undertaking, but it felt terrific to send vans out to our shops in the morning with our own produce.

The next step was cracking the supermarkets, and Scottish Enterprise helped put them in touch with Sainsbury’s, with haggis chosen as their first product for the shelves.

“We normally sold about 700 in January through our shops, and maybe twice that over the rest of the year,” he explained. “The first Sainsbury’s order was for 30,000 for January alone.

“I had no idea how we were going to do it, and it’s no exaggeration to say that staff worked day and night to get it done. It was an incredibly stressful time, staff were literally weeping with fatigue.”

The business now supplies its products to all of the UKs top six supermarkets, yet despite its size it is still very much a family butcher, with generations of the same family working for the company.

“We don’t have a revolving door and if we find good people we do our best to keep them,” Simon said.

Like other industries the business is facing growing challenges from the rising costs of raw materials to increased labour rates, but Simon says the biggest concern to the industry is what is happening on Scottish farms.

“One of our big problems is herd size,” he says. “We have culled too many cows, and now there are not enough people calving cows and lambing ewes, which puts the future of the herd, and the industry, under serious threat.

“What makes people spend the time and give the commitment to raising cows and ewes is ultimately financial reward, so we need to make sure primary processors are getting fair value.

“If we don’t then there will be a huge shortage of supply and the price for consumers will go up even more.”

Despite all the success over the last 40 years Simon Howie isn’t standing still. The company has invested more than £6 million on new equipment in over the last five years, and looks to spend around £500,000 every year to keep up to date.

And he is looking forward to the next 40 years - admitting cheerfully that “I told my wife I’d retire at 102.”

Butcher shop closure

While opening and running award-winning local butcher shops was at one point Simon Howie’s main focus for growing his business, today the company has just two.

Sadly that is soon to become just one - the thriving business on Perth High Street - with the news that their Auchterarder branch will close later this month.

The shop has been in the business since 1992, and the decision to close it has not been an easy one, brought on by steadily rising costs.

And despite its closure Simon still believes local butchers can enjoy huge success on the high street.

“We’ve had it for over 30 years so it’s not like we didn’t give it our best,” he insists. “The sales were still growing, but unfortunately the costs were going up every year as well and we just hit that point where it didn’t make sense to keep it open any more.

“It’s sad for us, but all the staff have been offered other roles within the company and we still have the Perth store.

“It’s tough out there for high street retailers right now for sure, but that’s less to do with online sales when it comes to the impact on local butchers – people who buy meat and produce prefer to buy with their eyes.“I have absolutely no doubt that someone could come in and take over that business and make a very good living from it.”

TOP FIVE

Simon Howie offers a huge range of products, and everyone has their favourite. Here are the top five best-sellers.

Sliced Black Pudding

The classic breakfast slices blend warm spices with the sweetness of apple for a wonderful flavour and a beautifully balanced taste, with 1.8 million packs sold per year.

Steak Lorne

A hugely popular Scottish favourite - and only stocked in Scotland - the Premium Steak Lorne Sausage is made from high quality cuts of beef mixed with a unique blend of spices and seasoning, with around 1.4 million packs sold every year.

Original Haggis

The first product the company stocked in supermarkets is now UK’s best-selling haggis, and in 2021 became the only haggis to go to the edge of space! The award winning traditional delicacy is a huge favourite and the company sells over 1.1 million packs every year.

Dry Cure Smoked Back Bacon

The company’s award-winning Dry Cure Smoked Back Bacon, shifts around a million packs a year. Matured for seven days minimum, it is traditionally smoked over beechwood in their Perthshire smokehouse for its delicious flavour.

Wee Black Pudding

The Wee Black Pudding is a big seller and packs a huge flavour, with the sweetness of apple and the warmth of spices. Its versatility for use in a variety of dishes from breakfast to fine dining helps the business shift around 800,000 packs per year.