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Ye Olde Sausage Shop at Oswaldtwistle Mills has picked up an impressive host of gold awards after their legendary sausages impressed the judges at a highly contested national competition.

Dave Painting and Martin Teese, owners of the award winning butchers, were presented with nine gold certificates for a variety of their speciality sausages at the annual BPEX Awards for Excellence in Meat Products.

Martin Teese, who has been a butcher for 18 years, said: “The proof that our sausages are award winning is in the taste and it’s great when we see the same faces coming back to buy more.

“We normally have 16 varieties of sausages available each week and we only use the freshest ingredients and local quality produce. All our products are prepared at the front of house for customers to see the whole process.

“It’s fantastic that we’ve won nine awards this year; we won eight last year and we strive to go forward each year to be bigger and better and it’s fantastic that we’ve succeeded by achieving this,” he added.

Since the butchers opened two and a half years ago, business has rocketed with around 50,000 single sausages being sold on average each week, and up to 80,000 at Christmas and busy periods.

To cater for their ever increasing number of customers, Dave and Martin are constantly adapting new recipes and ingredients and by popular demand, have introduced a variety of ‘SYN Free’ products that have been endorsed by Slimming World.

“We have never looked back since we launched the Slimming World products; we easily get 50% of our business from customers from as far as the Isle of Mann and Scotland who are following the Slimming World plan.

“We get our inspiration for our sausages from everywhere; at Christmas I saw a brie and cranberry panini on a menu and thought it would make a brilliant sausage. After experimenting we created a pork, port, brie and cranberry sausage which went on to win us a gold medal,” he said.

In 2008 the meat connoisseurs were also asked to represent the North West in the UKTV's 'Food Hero' competition and they were highly commended by Gary Rhodes.

Boyd Hargreaves, managing director of Oswaldtwistle Mills, said: “It’s fantastic to see the shop doing so well; especially when their products keep enticing people back to the Mills for more.

“Expansion plans are underway for a bigger Food Hall to cater for Ye Olde Sausage Shop’s success, along with the Crumbly Cheese Deli and our other speciality local food producers,” he concluded.

The North West Regional Roadshow was held at Bolton’s Reebok Stadium and sausages were marked on a strict criterion including overall appearance; size and colour; ease of cutting; texture and structure; and most importantly taste and smell.

Keith Fisher, BPEX butchery and product development manager, said: “Each butcher event surpasses the last and the North West was no different. It was incredible to see so many
butchers taking part and in total we handed out 305 awards, nearly half of them gold.

“This just goes to show the outstanding quality of products that are available across the North West and why consumers are returning to their local butcher shops,” he added.

Ye Olde Sausage Shop is located in the Ossy Mills Food Hall and is open 7 days a week and orders can be made by telephone on 01254 391305.

Sausages that won a gold award:

1.    Brown ale and dijon mustard beef
2.    Traditional beef
3.    The Northern Ingredient
4.    Cumberland
5.    Old fashioned pork
6.    Lancashire pork
7.    Pork, spinach and ricotta
8.    Pork and leek
9.    Cumberland young award (Made and submitted by 16 year old Jessica Leliugh who works part time at the butchers).

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