A HEREFORD butcher is one step away from being crowned as having the nation's best burger.

Heggies of Hereford's lamb, leek, mint and rosemary burger will be subject to further testing on Wednesday after already receiving a gold award in the first round of "England's Best Burger Challenge 2014".

To achieve a gold award, burgers had to score between 95 and 100 points.

Overall winners in each of the four categories - independent butcher, multiple retailer, foodservice and premium quality innovative burger - will be decided on Wednesday.

Awards will then be presented at a ceremony in London on June 4.

The competition is being organised by industry body EBLEX.

"We've had some really interesting entries in this year's competition," said Hugh Judd, foodservice project manager at industry at EBLEX.

"The burgers that achieved gold awards really stood out from the rest and this means that the final round will be incredibly tough to judge, but the overall category winners will definitely deserve the title 'England's best'."