The butchery team at New World Timaru have snagged another top award at at the Dunninghams Great New Zealand Sausage Competition.
They were awarded a silver award for their beef brisket, truffle and parmesan snag in the annual competition which featured more than 900 entries across 16 different categories.
They were one of five South Island New World stores to pick up an award this year.
It was New World Timaru’s fourth time entering the competition after having picked up a bronze award in 2023 and a bronze and silver award in 2024.
New World Timaru Fresh Foods operation manager Brayden Lancaster said it was great to be in the awards again for the third year in a row.
‘‘We entered six flavours this year and came away with one silver, so out of over 900 entries, that’s a pretty good hit rate, I suppose.’’
Last year’s awards both came in the poultry category, so it was great to have received an award in the gourmet beef section, he said.
‘‘It’s quite good to be recognised for a beef one, because you’re in there with the heavy hitters. There was over 130 entries for beef category, and we came away with a silver, so I was quite impressed.’’
To take part in the competition, samples are sent away to be judged and then entrants are scored on texture, mouth feel, flavour, aroma and consistency.
An overall winner is crowned as well as winners in each category.
The top 5% are awarded gold, the next 5% silver and the next 5% bronze, so only the top 15% of sausages in each category receive an award.
Mr Lancaster said a gold award was still the end goal.
‘‘We narrowly missed out this year, but we’re keen to keep entering, keep hustling and keep producing good product.
‘‘It’s just cool to be recognised on a national stage for a product that we’ve designed and that we produce by hand in-store. All of our sausages use whole muscle, it’s not offcuts or trim or anything like that, we use we use 100% whole ingredients and really focus on the quality aspect of them.
‘‘We weigh each batch out by hand to get the same ratio of lean muscle to fat each time, so it’s great for the team to get some recognition for that hard work, have something to be proud of and take a bit of pride in the product that we’re selling.’’
He said he had just produced a new batch of the award-winning sausages and was aiming to have them, as well as a variety of other flavours available to buy all through summer.
