"The market is massive because there are so many expat Scots there and once Americans try a good quality haggis, they can't get enough of it," a Scottish government spokesperson said in a report of BBC News.
It was in 1989 when the U.S. implemented the ban on haggis from Scotland amidst the Bovine spongiform encephalopathy [mad cow] scare because the dish contains offal ingredients such as sheep lungs.
The concern centers on the fact that sheep are subject to transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which is of the same family of diseases as BSE is.
"We do not allow importation because of the U.K.'s BSE status. Sheep are susceptible to TSE's and thus the U.S. takes precautions on importing those ruminants from BSE-affected countries," a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture stressed in a statement.
Haggis is from sheep but it resembles stuffed pig's intestines (chitterlings). Haggis is traditionally served with tatties and neeps (potatoes and turnips). It usually contains a sheep's lungs, liver and heart minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices and salt mixed with stock. It is then boiled in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Britain's Food Standards Agency insisted, "We see no reason at all why people cannot eat haggis safely, so long as manufacturers follow hygiene legislation."
The source from the Scottish government also added that it will engage the support of other haggis producers across the country in asking the U.S. consider their request.
