The Stories That Shaped Us

A Butcher Boy

12 is pretty young to find your career. 19 is pretty young to open your first shop. 40 years later, we’re looking back at where it all began. First up, the Saturday job that started it all…

Name above the door

At 19, Simon opened his first butcher’s shop. But the foundations for what came next had been laid long before that, through his father, his grandfather and the generations who came before him. In 1996, Simon put his own name above the door of the very shop where he’d started as a 12-year-old Saturday boy. A full-circle moment. And another chapter in a family story that had been passed down through generations.

A chance encounter

It started with a flat tyre.
Simon stopped to help a stranger on the side of the road. He had no idea that the man he was helping was Colin Bussey, Head Chef at Gleneagles, or that this chance encounter would lead to Simon Howie’s very first supply contract with the iconic Scottish hotel.
What followed was a 35-year relationship and an important chapter in the story of Simon Howie Foods.
In the third film in our 40th anniversary series, Simon looks back at the unlikely meeting that changed the course of the business

30,000 haggis

As the business grew, so did the opportunities.
Taking over butcher counters in Sainsbury’s opened up a new chapter for Simon Howie. Then came the first supermarket order for haggis: 30,000, compared with the 700 or so that would normally leave the factory at that time.

In the fourth film of our 40th anniversary series, we look back at a period of growth that helped take Simon Howie from a local butcher to the UK’s leading haggis brand.