Tom's ready for slice of online business

Tom Wood Artisan Butcher, who has a stall on Blackburn market, will be doing mail order sales from June 6 after his business has gone from strength to strength in its first year.

Tom, who captained the England team in the World Butchers' Challenge, set up his stall just over a year ago and is already looking to expand, such has been the success of the business.

And he said after getting a lot of contacts from across the country, he decided to try mail order meat deliveries.

He said: "We've had social media messages from as far as Gloucestershire asking if we can deliver meat to them so I thought I'd try it.

"We have grown steadily and slowly but demand has got so big that I think it's the right time to give it a go.

"I never really expected to be in this position but it's taken a lot of hard work and a lot of effort by the team to get us into this position.

"We have high hopes that the mail order side will take off and we'll be looking to expand our customer offer hopefully in the very near future."

Tom and his team have linked up with environmental packaging specialists woolcool, for delivery. All the packaging is recyclable and the wool not only keeps the meat chilled but is also reusable for the customer in hanging baskets etc.

The master butcher is also set to record a new video for the Farmer's Guardian after his previous film, which saw him butchering a lamb into its various products, which had almost three million views online.

He added: "These are exciting times but it's taken a lot of hard work by a lot of people to get us to this place.

"There are a lot of products on the site but that's only a small fraction of what we can provide.

"We just need to see how things go and what sells well. But there are thoughts to provide quality ready meals as that's what people want.

"It's a very exciting time so we just have to see what happens."

You can see the site at tomwoodartisanbutcher.co.uk and it goes live for orders on June 6.