MacSween says ‘Brexit will never take our haggis’

As countless haggis fans across the world celebrated Burns Night with the traditional “Great Chieftain o’ the Pudding Race” leading quality haggis producer Macsween told the BBC there’s no danger of its haggis becoming an endangered species.

James Macsween said the risk his company has had to answer is in the supply of machinery parts, as most of the equipment used in production comes from the continent.

But plans have been set in motion, he said, commenting: “We’ll cope whatever comes our way”.

Meanwhile the firm - whose European markets include France and Germany - has reportedly exported £25,000 worth of haggis to Canada in January alone.

The move, which answers demand from Canada’s large quota of people of Scots descent, was made possible by the development of a new recipe that meets the country’s food regulations.

Traditional haggis is banned from the USA through fear of its key ingredients, and any authentic haggis consumed there will be home made or - like Cuban cigars - smuggled across a border.

A spokeswoman for the Dutchess County Scottish Society told a New York State journal: “The haggis we make is not sheep’s bladder and it doesn’t have all the entrails because that’s illegal in the United States today.

“So we go to a butcher who makes a very big sausage, and for our haggis we mix hamburger meat, kidney, oatmeal, a lot of whiskey (sic) and then we stick it in this casing and cook it.”

She said it tastes like “spicy hamburger meat”.

Meanwhile on the home front Macsween’s popular vegetarian haggis, already listed in several major supermarket brands, has now been adopted by Tesco.