The contest, which has been recognising and rewarding sausages served up in pubs, restaurants, hotels and schools for a decade, celebrates the diverse range of quality assured sausages available today.
It is open to all sausage makers who supply the catering sector, as well as chefs who make sausages for sale on the premises. There are five categories to showcase the varieties now available. They are:
Traditional Pork Sausage
Speciality Pork Sausage
Best Pub Pork Sausage
Best Innovative Pork Sausage
Iconic British Banger
In addition to the categories for traditional, speciality and best pub sausage, the competition welcomes innovative varieties using different or unusual ingredients or those developed to meet specific budget or health guidelines. This year, a special category to find ‘Iconic British Bangers’ ahead of British Sausage Week has been introduced. This is for sausages that best represent what is great about British bangers, be it the recipe or ingredients used.
The closing date for paper entries is Friday 7 September 2012, after which samples will be required for judging. Three finalists from each category will be put forward to take part in a grand final at Butchers’ Hall, London on 26 October 2012.
BPEX foodservice trade manager, Tony Goodger, said: “Sausages are incredibly important to the sector. As our latest report ‘Eating Out – Pork and Sausages’ demonstrates, they account for 21% of all red meat servings out of home (537 million servings) and continue to grow in popularity year on year.”