A ROSSENDALE firm has been named king of the black puddings after scooping a string of awards.

The Real Lancashire Black Pudding Co reaffirmed its place as Britain’s most-highly decorated black pudding maker after winning two gold and two silver medals at the National Meat Products competition.

The Haslingden-based company entered three black puddings and a white pudding into the awards at Birmingham’s NEC and was named British champion.

It followed success on the continent for the Waterside Road firm when it won a silver medal in Europe’s premier black pudding contest, at Mortagne- au-Perche, France.

It brought the company’s tally of awards over the past 20 years to 185 with victories in France, Belgium, Germany, Holland and Austria.

Managing director Andrew Holt said: “It is really great to win awards that endorse the quality of our products.

“Our dedicated team works very hard to maintain our high standards and winning accolades such as these makes them very proud of what they do.

“We had to take a break from competitions for a while because we moved our business to a new purpose-designed factory which took more than a year of hard graft and we simply didn’t have time.”

One of the products entered in the competition was a smoked ham and cheese black pudding, which judges found to be a very innovative and unusual product and was only a few points from winning the ‘Supreme Champion’ title.

The Real Lancashire Black Pudding Co is a family-run business dating to 1879.