Butcher gets his sausages snapped!

Rob Stafford is clearly a little awkward in front of a camera. But after a couple of quips from photographer Kate about taking pictures of his sausages, he starts to smile, and even relaxes enough to tell her that he thought those days were gone!

I'm out with one of the Derby Telegraph photographers at Rob Stafford Butchers, in Mickleover, Derby, to take some snaps to go with my third Food You Can Trust piece, published in the newspaper today.

Look into my eyes.....

Working in journalism means you develop a pretty thick skin, and also lose all sense of shame. Over the years I've been photographed doing some pretty ridiculous things for newspapers, including wandering round Derby city centre wearing giant "beer goggles", getting needles stuck in my arm for a skin sensitivity test, standing on some scales (surely every woman's worst nightmare) for the Mail on Sunday, and even being winched to the top of a circus tent (not a good angle for the thighs). Stick my name into Google and all sorts of silly things will no doubt come up.

So it's only when you go out to meet other NORMAL people that you remember how daunting posing for a press photographer can be.

Despite his nerves though, Rob agreed to pose in the doorway of his shop with me, and also look into my eyes (always a bit of an awkward one) while handing me a bag of sausages.

I'm going to pause here to let all the innuendos run through your head.

Finished?

Okay, I'll carry on....

Rob is one of the many people I've been meeting who make me feel so glad to have given up the supermarkets. He tells me he's from a farming family and his brother still keeps sheep. He can tell me where every bit of meat in his shop has come from, and the sausages I buy to take home for Neil were made in the shop, using pork from a farm in Ashbourne, Derbyshire.

Poking around with the pickles

I never thought when I started this challenge that it would mean writing so many pieces about meat (lets remember I'm a vegetarian) but thanks to the horsemeat scandal that's how it's panning out so far. Rob tells me that although his shop is always fairly busy, he's seen a real boom in business since the news broke two months ago, and customers who have clearly never visited a butcher before have been finding their way into his shop.

When he takes Kate round the back to check out the stock in his meat fridge I make my excuses not to join them. An entire cold storage unit full of slabs of cow might be more than my stomach can handle, so in the interests of journalist research (obviously) I check out the rest of the shop's stock instead. It's not just meat - the store offers eggs, sauces, flour, pickles, condiments and locally-made bread.

After making a few notes and posing for a few more shots with Rob's pickles and eggs, Kate and I say our goodbyes and head back to the office.

If you don't live in Derbyshire you can read the third instalment of my foodie features on the Derby Telegraph website.