The Great Hampshire Sausage Pie Ready Meal Competition (from Scene South)

February sees the return of The Great Hampshire Sausage, Pie & Ready Meal Competition, a county competition for Hampshire butchers and meat producers vying to become Supreme Champion 2008, and county food group Hampshire Fare is asking Southern Daily Echo readers to encourage their local independent butcher to take part.

Last year's competition, organised by Hampshire Fare, saw a record number of 277 entries from 36 Hampshire butchers. Now in its 6th year, this annual competition is the largest county competition of its kind in the country.

Tim Brock, Hampshire Fare manager said: "This is always an exciting event designed to reward excellence and promote Hampshire's independent retail butchers and livestock farmers. The national judges are always very impressed with the quality of the products.

"Hampshire Fare aims to make consumers more aware of where they can buy locally reared meat and meat products - through farm shops, independent butchers and at Hampshire farmers' markets, and this competition puts the spotlight on the quality and choice available locally."

The competition is sponsored by The British Pig Executive, with support from Hampshire County Council, Lucas Ingredients and New Forest Marque.

Overall there are 11 categories including sausages, hot and cold pies, bacon, ready meals and barbecue products, which are judged by a team of professional sausage makers from across the UK and specially invited guests including the local media.

In 2007, 79 gold certificates were awarded and ten trophy winners, including the Supreme Champion awarded to Alan Gritt of Hedge End Butchers for his New Forest pork sausage.

Producers are encouraged to think local, using added ingredients sourced from Hampshire, such as beer, cider, cheeses and chutneys.

This year will include a special seasonal category for Valentine's Day for butchers to spice up their entries, which attracted entry names such as the Pleasure Porker' when the competition previously fell in February!

While the event is closed to the public, details of all the winners and where to buy their products will be on www.hampshirefare.co.uk or call 01962 845435. A free directory detailing Hampshire Fare independent butchers and farm shops as well as other local food, drink and craft producers is also available from Hampshire Fare.

What are these links for?

If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.

At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.

Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.

Newsquest
Terms & Conditions Privacy Policy © Copyright 2001-2008 Newsquest Media Group A Gannett Company
This site is part of Newsquest's audited local newspaper network