Fred’s jalapeno, smoked cheese and ham sausage won the gold medal for the champion in the gourmet varietal (a mixture of beef and pork) class at the awards, held in Auckland.
‘‘We had entered five sausages and as they read off the names of third place winner, then second, and then first in class, I thought we had missed out.
‘‘Then they called out Cattermoles for the supreme champion and I missed hearing it as I had turned to talk to my sister.
‘‘I was a bit shocked but pleased as it’s all good for our great team here at Cattermoles,’’ he said.
This was only the second year Fred and the small team at the Kaiapoi butchery had entered the national sausage competition.
Last year they won a silver medal.
‘‘We wanted to make our jalapeno, smoked cheese sausage stand out and be above all the others who had entered the same flavours, so we added in some New Zealand smoked ham and that made all the difference.’’
The Kaiapoi-based butchery also earned a bronze in the flavours of the world category with a mushroom and seaweed Korean pork creation which Fred says has a lovely savoury cream flavour.
Other North Canterbury sausage makers earning awards at the competition were Harris Farms Ltd, which picked up a silver medal for its steak ‘n’ cheese burger patty.
Hellers won a silver medal for its smokey saveloys plus a bronze medal for its homegrown lamb.
New World Rangiora earned a silver for its jalapeno & tasty cheese sausage.
More than 800 bangers, snags, snarlers, meatballs and patties from 108 businesses competed across 16 categories, 13 for sausages and three mince sections.
Judging was a two-stage process. The first took eight days with a 34-strong panel assessing composition, taste, texture and appearance. Top-scoring category entries then moved on to the final round, where they competed for the supreme award, won by Westmere Butchery of Auckland for its pork and leek sausage.