About Us

The growing interest and pride in Scottish history is evidenced by the burgeoning number of Scottish Festivals across the U.S. Americans of Scottish ancestry compose a substantial percentage of the American population. It is to this group of Americans that we belong. Our haggis is a gift and a labour of love to our Scottish ancestors and to our beloved native homeland of Scotland.

Our own introduction to haggis took place in 1992, when we, being of good Scottish ancestry, made our first pilgrimage to Scotland. At our first evening meal, with great trepidation, we did our duty to our ancestors and ordered "the Haggis." WE LOVED IT!! We ordered it every chance we got - at Bed & Breakfast guest houses and inns as part of the "Full Scottish Breakfast," and with dinner at several restaurants. It was different, but it was delicious. We also tried several brands of canned haggis and found one that stood out from the rest. We bought all we could pack in our suitcases and enjoyed it after we returned home on special occasions as we reminisced about Scotland.

Later, we went to the Texas Scottish Festival and Highland Games and found, to our dismay, no haggis and, in fact, precious little of the other wonderful food we had enjoyed in Scotland. (Thank goodness there was plenty of McEwan's Export to be had. ) I mentioned this lack of Scottish food to a friend at work who is a native Scot from Glasgow. She looked at me with the stern Scottish expression she is famous (or notorious) for around here and said, "If you like the food so much, then learn to make it yourself. Then we'll have our own food booth at the festival next year." That was the beginning of a long process of making a version of haggis to suit the American market. Our last three cans of the haggis served as the guiding standard of our adapted recipe. After about three months of experimentation, we finally got it really close. We submitted our haggis to the acid test of a native Scottish tasting panel and used their input to fine tune and perfect the recipe. We made our public debut, serving haggis, along with "neeps" and "tatties," at the Texas Scottish Festival in early June. Everyone loved it! Especially gratifying was the positive reaction of some Scotsmen who had flown in from Scotland for the festival. Since that time, we have been called upon by several Scottish organizations and Clan societies to supply haggis for Burns Nights and other celebrations.

Some five years after we had made our debut with The Caledonian Kitchen at the Texas Scottish Festival and Highland Games, we investigated the possibility of canning our haggis. After a lot of encouragement from our fellow Clan Donald members and friends in the Scottish community, we started looking for a USDA-approved cannery that could can our haggis for us. After a very long and fruitless search we finally hit pay dirt! We discovered Taylor's Famous Mexican Chili. Taylor's Chili has been a southern Illinois institution since 1904 and is a family owned and operated business in small-town America. After several extensive conversations with them, we discovered that they were about as picky about quality as we were. Finally, in October of 2001, the first experimental batch of Caledonian Kitchen Haggis was cooked and canned at Taylor's USDA-inspected canning facility in Carlinville, Illinois. The collaboration and idea swapping that went on between Taylor's, the USDA Inspector, and us resulted in a major success in not only the survivability of our recipe in the brutally torturous canning process, but a success in maintaining the quality of the haggis. After a few minor adjustments, we had what we wanted, great tasting haggis that met our standards of quality and the opportunity to fill a need in our Scottish American market. We are humbled by the opportunity to be the first to our knowledge to can and market haggis in this country, and we are also confident that our haggis is the best anywhere.

For those of you who have doubts about the culinary virtues of the Haggis: don't believe all the nay-sayers, especially if you've never eaten it! There are many haggis-lovers out there who would love to frighten off the timid and the skeptical so they'll have more haggis for themselves!! We at the Caledonian Kitchen have made a vow that we will not rest until the world gives the regal Haggis the exalted place it deserves as "...noble Chieftain of tha puddin' race." Thanks to our friends and customers, our business continues to grow and evolve. Our first signs of this growth came when Taylors Chili, told us that we had outstripped their capacity to keep up with us and began the process of helping us shift production to another cannery. Using the Taylor network of friends and contacts, we came up with a new cannery! We are extremely grateful to have such people as the people at Taylors for giving us our start and for remaining loyal friends of ours as our business continue to grow by leaps and bounds.

New Manufacturing Facility

Our new canning facility is a family owned business, Werling and Sons of Burkettsville, Ohio. Werling and Sons has been a family business in the Central Ohio area since 1886. In addition to being a meat processing facility, Werling and Sons is a state of the art cannery. They give us the flexibility as well as the increased capacity to meet our future growth needs. Mr. Ed Werling, who retired from the family business, has left it to his two sons, Joe and John Werling to run the family business. These two are very market savvy and have the same adventurous spirit as we have. One of the many things we have in common is the total lack of fear to try anything new! This has enabled us to develop quite a few unique products for our customers.

Expanded Haggis Production

Our first product innovation came one February with the shift from our original USDA Choice Sirloin Beef Haggis to a recipe using Highland Beef. Our beef came from a private championship herd raised by Mr. Adrian Braun, who is one of the founding fathers of the Midwest Highland Cattle Growers Association. Mr. Braun's fellow Scottish Highland Cattle growers are pleased to have found another market for their cattle especially a market for Scottish ethnic food. These magnificent and beautiful cattle are the original breed of ancient Scotland and are the mother breed of many of today's modern beef cattle. Their long and shaggy coats protect them from the harsh elements and results in a leaner and less fatty beef. The cattle are grass fed and are raised free from commercial feedlots. This results in a pure and natural beef that is a lot more flavorful and richer than ordinary commercial beef. Our customers tell us that our Highland Beef Haggis has the taste that is a cross between venison and our regular USDA Choice Sirloin beef. In addition to our new Highland Beef Haggis, we also produce both a USDA Choice Sirloin version, as well as a Lamb version.

Whisky Cakes

August 5, 2004 marked a big day for us and the end of a long product development project period. We have created an entirely new line of products using an old process in a completely unique way. Our process of making our new Shortbread Whisky Cakes-In-A-Can is so unique and secret that we have applied to the US Patent and Trademark Office for Patent and Trademark protection for our unique process and recipes! We sought to develop recipes that benefited from and were actually improved by using the canning process. We found it in our cakes. Our process and recipes result in cakes that are unmatched in richness, moistness, and density. Not to mention an intensity of flavors that comes from using only natural and the highest quality ingredients. (Note: the whisky cakes were discontinued due to changes in the regulatory process involved with manufacturing.)

The story of The Caledonian Kitchen is a story of people and a story of our shared culture. Our business has become a journey of discovery and tribute to our ancestors as well as a way to promote those things that are unique to Scottish history and culture. We look forward to hearing from you! SLAINTE!!!