“You Gotta pick a sausage or Two!” – Round One judging of the Taste Cheshire Sausage competition 2022 #News

Victoria Hayes
28th February 2022

“You Gotta pick a sausage or Two!” – Round One judging of the Taste Cheshire Sausage competition 2022 was completed today at the University of Chester’s NoWFood facility.

Now Food Centre University of Chester, Taste Cheshire Sausage Competition. Picture judging of none and flavoured sausages.
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Now in its 15th year, Taste Cheshire’s annual Sausage competition goes from strength to strength. Butchers from across Cheshire, North Wales and the Wirral go head-to-head to compete for the honorary title of Best Plain sausage and Best Flavoured sausage of the festival.

The first round of the competition sees around 14 local butchers entering and is judged at the University of Chester Now Food Centre in a blind tasting by industry professionals. These are whittled down to just three sausages in each category to go forward to the Grand Final at the Festival.

The final is judged by 40 members of the public judges at the Taste Cheshire Food and Drink festival who will taste and vote these finalists to become the overall Sausage champions.

Early on Sunday 17^th April at the Chester Food and Drink festival, take a seat in the auditorium and enjoy tasting some of the region’s best sausages.

A panel of 6 judges led by Chairman and four-time winner Steve Vaughan, included Tori Hayes from Taste Cheshire and returning judge, “sausage queen” Izzy Grey of We Love Good Times. New to the panel were champion of shopping local, Amanda Cope from Made in Northwich and Chester restaurateur, owner of Popcorn and sausage specialist Steve Davies, who deliberated in a blind tasting over sausages from right across Cheshire and North Wales.  

Now Food Centre University of Chester, Taste Cheshire Sausage Competition. Picture judging of none and flavoured sausages.
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Jeff George from the NoWfood centre was once again on the panel of judges and commented “there are some great sausages this year and it was clear from the overall scores that the sausages were of a very high standard indeed”.

Tori Hayes from Taste Cheshire said, “We would like to thank all of the local butchers who got involved. This year in addition to the brilliant quality we had a real mixed bag of entries particularly in the flavoured categories, ranging from pork and herbs to Kimchi and even Honeycomb. This shows the true spirit of this competition, and it’s great to see how the butchers get inventive and have fun with their flavours. We may be a little way off the BBQ weather yet but some off these entries should be top of the list.”

Taste Cheshire are happy to announce the finalists in the Plain Sausage Category as, S.J. Bebbington (Chester), Muffs of Bromborough and David Joinson Quality Meats (Chester).

The Finalists in the Flavoured Sausage category are, Chestnut Meats (Nantwich) for their Pork and Tomato entry, Muffs of Bromborough for their Millennium Sausage entry and Pen-y-lan Pork for their Spiced Mango, lime and coconut.

Festival organiser Briony Wilson thanked the Now Food Centre for providing such outstanding facilities to allow all the sausages to be cooked in the optimum conditions. “We are so lucky to be back at the NoWFood centre with our sausage specialists. The last two years, Covid has prevented us from running this much-loved element of the festival and it’s such a wonderful way to showcase our incredible local produce. The butchers who enter are top notch and there were some really close scores. We can’t wait to see who the public choose as overall champions”.

Now Food Centre University of Chester, Taste Cheshire Sausage Competition. Picture judging of none and flavoured sausages.
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The Taste Cheshire Food and Drink Festival takes place from 16^th – 18^th April 2022, over Easter. For more information or to find out how to buy tickets, with children under 12 free, please go to www.chesterfoodanddrink.co.uk