Westmere Butchery in Westmere, Auckland.
It’s official, Westmere Butchery has taken out the top prize in this year’s sausage awards with its pork and leek iteration.
The historic Auckland business received the Supreme Award accolade at the 2024 Dunningham’s Great New Zealand Sausage Competition, presented at an industry event in Auckland on Tuesday night.
What makes a winning snag? Judges acknowledged the Westmere Butchery’s classic combination of flavours. Kathy Paterson noted that the “perfectly cooked” leek gave the sausage an exceptional texture, declaring it “a truly delicious sausage”. Judge Brian Everton lauded its technical superiority, with “well-balanced and evenly distributed the ingredients were throughout the sausage”.
Over 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 moved on to the next round, where they competed for the Supreme Award.
One of the country’s many food awards – 2024 has seen the nation’s best pies, toasted sandwiches and olive oil all judged and declared – the Dunningham’s Great New Zealand Sausage Competition has been running for 27 years.
Westmere Butchery has taken out the top prize before, winning the supreme award in 2019 with its chicken, leek and bacon sausage.
It also got top honours in 2018; the race was so close that it was announced as a draw, with Westmere butchery and New World Te Rapa sharing the top gong.
It’s not the first time the contest has been declared a tie; 2022 saw New World Te Rapa (again) and Auckland’s Zaroa Meats named joint winners.
In 2014 Westmere Butchery scored the people’s choice award for its peri peri chicken sausage, and in 2022 its bone-in leg ham was awarded best ham at the New Zealand Bacon and Ham Awards.