Martinborough beef and cheese snarler named NZ champion

Beef and triple cheese: top of the beef sausage pops.

Double bangers make it double gold for Pain & Kershaw’s butchery team – named winner of the Gourmet Beef category of the nation’s Great New Zealand Sausage Competition – beating out 108  other entries for the category’s top spot.

It’s the second year in a row the team has taken out a Gold Medal with its shop-made sausages.

But this year was a step higher: Four Square (P & K) Martinborough’s Beef & Triple Cheese was classified “Category Champion” of the Gourmet Beef group. 

Ingredients: beef and three – mozzarella, parmesan and tasty. Best in the country.

The team, butcher Trudy Tannant and apprentice Ben Matthews, worked on the recipe during the year ahead of the competition, store manager Kane Mullen told The Star.

The three-cheese combination came “from Ben. It was a flippant idea thrown out there by him – ‘how about a beef and triple cheese sausage?’ – and from there Trudy and Ben perfected the recipe. So we ended up here! They nailed it. It’s awesome.”

The competition promotes itself as The Dunninghams Great New Zealand Sausage Competition _ the “premier event for New Zealand smallgoods producers,” and the annual search “for the best sausage in the country.”

This year’s search saw 137 of the more than 800 entries taking away gold, silver or bronze awards _ with only 16 were awarded Category Champions titles.

“It went incredibly well, we were incredibly happy with it, I’m proud of the effort our butchery team has put into it,” Mullen said. “They’ve done an amazing job.

“Trudy has been passionate about it from entry through to actually winning the competition,” he said.

“It was a Gold medal for our sausage last year but this year it’s even higher – Category champion sits out above a Gold medal. Top of the pile.” 

“(Trudy), she’s over the moon, absolutely rapt and already thinking about next year’s competition.”

Trudy’s win last year netted her a new $15,000 butchery mincer after senior manager Conor Kershaw promised to “buy her something” if she won Gold.

Added Mullen: “to be ranked as highly as that among 108 competitors makes us feel really great. Being one of only two butcheries in Wairarapa to receive an award makes it even better.”

Greytown Butchery was the other Wairarapa entrant to win a Gold medal, for its Italian Tomato & Spinach sausage in the Continental Fresh category. The category saw 13 entries win Gold.  Auckland’s Mapari Meats Venison Chorizo was named Continental Fresh Category Champion & People’s Choice.

The annual competition lists some 16 categories, ranging from black pudding sausages through to three non-sausage categories: burger patties traditional and flavoured, plus meatballs.

A special category is the 2024 Dunninghams’ Choice award, taken out by Princes Street Butcher and Kitchen from Dunedin, which also won the Traditional Pork Category Champion, beating six other entrants.