From the outside, squashed between the Bargain Booze off-licence and a Polish restaurant on Mansfield Road in Sherwood, OFM's Best Producer for 2011 is not much to look at. But step inside JT Beedham & Sons, which has been on these premises since 1884, and you find a hunter-gatherer's paradise. In a central chilled cabinet sit huge shins of aged beef, gleaming kidneys, succulent fillets of lamb and pork belly with a flitch of fat so wide you think it must be a mistake – all sourced from two local farms. If you are lucky, owner Johnny Pusztai will be there too, encouraging everyone who comes in the shop to try the samples on the counter.

Pusztai was 12 when he started working here, when it was still owned by the Beedham family, riding a delivery bike around the town, doubling his 10-bob salary with tips. He knew instantly this would be his career. "I'd look through the window at the women who'd come in and chat to the butchers," he says. "Those guys were magicians with meat and I wanted that to be me."

Now 52, Pusztai took over Beedhams in 1991 – he had spent the intervening years working in a slaughterhouse and as a semi-pro ice hockey player for the Nottingham Panthers. He gradually began to shake things up, combining his traditional English butchering skills with a love of smoked and air-dried meats imparted by his Hungarian father, Dezso (Johnny's mother is from up the road in Mansfield). Dezso Pusztai is a constant presence in our conversation. Not literally – he died on an autobahn while heading to Hungary to retire – but a framed photograph of him oversees proceedings from the counter of the development kitchen. It was taken for Dezso's passport when he first came to England in 1956, escaping the Soviet invasion of his homeland.

"The Hungarians in Nottingham would get together to make kolbasz, Hungarian sausage," Pusztai recalls. "They would stand with fags in their mouths and argue for hours about it. But it tasted amazing, even with all the ash in it."

Pusztai's most celebrated client is local Michelin-starred chef and OFM Awards judge Sat Bains. Bains used his air-dried meat in his ham, egg and peas dish that was awarded three perfect 10 scores on the BBC's Great British Menu in 2007.

Bains is evangelical about Pusztai's pork belly. The secret? The farmer puts smoky bacon crisps in the pigs' feed. "They mix them in to the animal feed, because they are high in saturated fat," says Bains. "It's the best pork I've ever tasted."

Traditional butchers are struggling – down from 22,000 independent shops in the mid-90s to 6,500 – but Pusztai offers a model for the industry: innovative products and impeccable quality. "If you come here, you are coming for something bespoke. Nobody will touch me. I will stand up against anybody with my product. Anybody."

RUNNER-UP THE KERNEL BREWERY

Even Ferran Adria is a fan of this small south London brewer whose IPA impressed the judges. It's stocked across London, from Selfridges to delis and top restaurants such as Hibiscus. Buy it online at beermerchants.com or direct from the brewery on Saturdays only; thekernelbrewery.com