A BRADWELL butcher is celebrating a record-breaking year after making the decision to expand his business just one year ago.Andrew Edmonds from Bradwell Butchery doubled the size of his shop to include a bakery and delicatessen and has since seen sales soar by 40pc.

A BRADWELL butcher is celebrating a record-breaking year after making the decision to expand his business just one year ago.

Andrew Edmonds from Bradwell Butchery doubled the size of his shop to include a bakery and delicatessen and has since seen sales soar by 40pc.

The move has also seen the creation of five new jobs bringing the team total to 13 - and with more new jobs in the pipeline.

Andrew said: “We have been here on this site since 1986 but two years ago, the shop next door came up for sale. It was the perfect opportunity to expand and to include additional products.”

“We decided to go for it, including revamping the car park at the front and having a smart new image to take us forward”.

All meat at Bradwell Butchery is sourced solely from within East Anglia so that Andrew knows the heritage of his meat. This passion for quality, has resulted in customers coming from far and wide to buy the products. The shop is famous for its 45 varieties of sausages using Blythburgh Free Range Pork (including a Bradwell Bomber which includes chilli and a Norfolk Mardler made from pork and herbs), first-class cuts of meat, hand-raised pork pies and homemade steak pies, award-winning bacon and fresh bread, cakes and muffins baked on the premises. The shop sells over 150,000 sausages each year and has recently been producing its own South African dried meats Biltong and Dry Wurst.

The expansion also gave Andrew's wife Lisa and daughter Megan the chance to fulfil one of their dreams - to make special occasion and birthday cakes which are proving really popular.

Andrew's butchery career started as a Saturday boy at a family firm, Tubby's in Caister. From there he went to work at Sainsbury's for three years to see a different side of the business. Coming back to his native Norfolk, he managed a butcher's shop in Hemsby before hearing about a shop for sale in Bradwell which he bought in 1986.

In March, Bradwell Butchery won the Independent New Type category in the national Bacon Connoisseurs' Week competition for its Organic Beer & Black Treacle cured bacon. The company has also won numerous other awards in recent years including Young Sausage Maker at the East Midlands BPEX Roadshow in 2006 and 2008.