It is sure to divide opinion - is a chocolate haggis about to become a settled tradition of Burns Night or is it just a round brownie?

One of Scotland's haggis producers is releasing what it claims is the world’s first ever readily available chocolate haggis.

Butcher Simon Howie is introducing the limited edition dessert from today and it will be on sale in supermarkets until January 25.

Clair Howison, Brand Director at Simon Howie, said she came up with the idea for the haggis-shaped chocolate brownie while out on a run.

Ms Howison was the brains behind a marketing stunt that saw the company send a haggis into space in 2021. She said: "I’m a keen marathon runner and the idea for chocolate haggis came to me on one of my long training runs.

"I know it’s easy to like your own ideas but I was sold on this straight away.

"My brain was going at 100 miles an hour as I thought through how it gave Burns Night an off the shelf pudding for the first time and allowed people - and especially kids who didn’t want to eat normal haggis - a haggis they could really get excited about."

The chocolate "haggis" is a dark and white chocolate chip brownie cased in vegetarian haggis casing and which is cooked in the same way as a traditional haggis.

Simon Howie will make more than 1.3 million haggis to be sold during January in the run up to Burns Night 2024.

Mr Howie added: “We’ve been doing what we do for a long time now but we have always stayed innovative and open to ideas.

"When Clair said she wanted us to make chocolate haggis we all got it straight away.

"It’s taken a lot of work from every part of the business to develop and launch this product and it’s not been an easy process but it captured all of our imagination and gave our factory a touch of the Wonka magic as we’ve developed it over the last year."

One of the challenges, Mr Howie said, was the increased expense given that chocolate costs significantly more than offal.

The recipe also required to be one that would not expand and explode in the steamer.

Chocolate haggis tasting day, he added, soon became the office highlight.

Mr Howie said: "The recipe we use is based on Katherine our Technical Director's secret family recipe but obviously upscaled by quite a lot.

"Just as we make gluten free and vegetarian haggis the chocolate haggis is made on the same machines.

"Mixed in the bowl chopper and then fed through the haggis caser and in to the steamers.

"It is now just another haggis that we need to make."