National Butchers' Week 2018 will take place on 12-18 March and we're already gearing up to make this the biggest and most creative year ever.

This will be the 11th year of National Butchers' Week and it is presented by William Reed Business Media, the company behind the acclaimed World's 50 Best Restaurants awards, The International Wine Challenge and the World Steak Challenge.

Over the course of the week, we'll be making an extra effort to highlight the great work being done by butchers from around the UK that sets them apart from the competition.

This year's National Butchers' Week will focus on the fantastic innovation that takes place within butchers' shops across the land.

Deputy editor Aidan Fortune said National Butchers' Week was a chance for butchers to get creative. “National Butchers' Week is an opportunity for a business to show off its creativity. Some of the most successful butchers in the country do amazing work to create new dishes that tempt customers and increase basket spend.

If you have a product idea that you're toying with, this is the week to try it out and offer your customers something new.

“At a time when meat provenance and supply chain security is under tremendous scrutiny, independent retail butchers can represent excellent, locally-sourced food that offer tremendous value to the customer. It's time customers were reminded of this.”

National Butchers' Week 2018 will be a great opportunity to develop a new product and test it out on your customers, or even come up with a new recipe that shoppers can create at home, using the products bought at your shop.

As well as growing sales and inspiring your customers, these new ideas could help create loyal shoppers that will keep coming back to see what else you've come up with.

Butchers who are looking to create and launch new products for National Butchers' Week are also invited to let us know about them for the annual product innovation competition. We'll be collecting some of the best products submitted and putting them to a public vote online. To enter a product in the innovation competition, email them to aidan.fortune@wrbm.com.

Be sure to follow National Butchers' Week on Facebook and Twitter using the #NationalButchersWeek hashtag to keep on top of what's happening in the run-up to the week and perhaps spark some creativity.

ENDS

For more information on National Butchers' Week 2018, please email aidan.fortune@wrbm.com

National Butchers' Week 2018 is kindly sponsored by Henry Winning & Co and Tulip.