CSB - Dave Rossiter - Dunninghams Great New Zealand Sausage Competition

The highly anticipated Dunninghams Great New Zealand Sausage Competition has unveiled the nation’s top sausage at a special awards evening, where butchers from across the country gathered to find out who had snagged the top spot.

 

Westmere Butchery in Auckland beat over 800 other entries to be announced as the Supreme Winner with their Pork and Leek sausage. Praised by judges for its exceptional balance of flavour, texture, and quality ingredients, owner-operator Dave Rossiter of Westmere Butchery said he is humbled and over the moon to have won.

 

“It’s brilliant, just fantastic,” said Rossiter. “It’s a real team effort - we always put our heads together when deciding what to make. It’s a bit of trial and error throughout the year, but with a lot of love, it’s paid off this year.”

 

This year saw fierce competition, with 808 sausages and mince products (meatballs and burger patties) submitted across 16 categories—13 for sausages and 3 for mince. The competition, an annual celebration of craftsmanship and flavour, showcases the best from butchers and producers from every corner of the country.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well. Last night in Auckland, the Dunningham's Great New Zealand
Sausage competition was wrapped up and the nation's top sausage
was awarded and the winning sausage goes to Auckland's wish
Me Butchery, beat out over eight hundred other entries. The
owner operator from wesmy A Butchery, Dave Rossiter, joins me

(00:21):
morning Dave one, and how are you well? Very well?
Thank you congratulations mate.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Oh, thank you very much, appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Tell us about this winning sausage.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, have pork and leak. It's a sausage we've been
making for a wee while. It's fresh, fresh leaks and pure,
pure pork, and it's just got a fantastic flavor. Everything
just goes together.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
So well, how did you come up with sort of
mixing pork with leaks of all things?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
I think it was probably one of the wife's ideas,
you know, with cooking up stews and the guitar that
tastes well goes well together. We'll give that a try
and we put it together. It took a little bit
of a juggling until we've got the right mix. We
perfected it and it's what a fantastic sausage, because.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Where's me a butcher's famous for it? Well, it's meat
in general, but you're famous for your sausages. You do
do all sorts of different flavor ones there, don't you.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, we make about thirty four different varieties. A lot
of them have been award winning as well. Some of
them haven't been so good to start with, but I've
just perfected them, you know, trial and error, and they've
all turned out pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Do you sit down as a team and put your
heads together and say, now, okay, we've got some mins here, porkmant's.
What are we going to do with it? How do
we mix it up?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, we normally sit down once a week and well,
we're going to try something else. And we've had some
real disasters, but the majority of them have turned out
pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
So what makes a good sausage good sausage?

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Where if you start off with good raw products, the
rest pretty simple, It really is. You just need good
raw products to make a good product.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
What about seasoning wise?

Speaker 2 (02:14):
The season is a big part of it. You've just
got to make sure you've got the right amount of salt, pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon,
whatever type of sausage you're going to be making, and yeah,
just got to make sure you've got the right there balance.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Are there secret ingredients that go into some of your sausages.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, we've try and keep her the majority of our
sausages under wraps.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Quite a competition, this one, really, when you think about it,
over eight hundred other entries and you beat out all
those other entries.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, everybody else is making it harder and harder and harder.
I've got to take my hats off to everybody else
out there. They've done a fantastic job, they really have.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
I guess the biggest challenge is being a judge. Really,
isn't it for a competition like this.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, it's got to be really hard for them.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
You know.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
They spend a lot of their own personal time to
judge these products, and they do a fantastic job.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
So the pork and leaf leak sausage, that's the one
to go for out of whisk me a butchery mate.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
At the moment, I think that's our best sausage at
the moment. I'm not saying all the others are no good,
but that's the best one at the moment.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Dave, you're a butcher, and I always admire butchers. You
guys work long hours. What time do you start every day?

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Four four point thirty and pretty long days. We're here
until six thirty in the evenings.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
How long you've been doing it for?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
How old am I I'm going to give it. I'm
going to give it all the way now. I've been
doing it for over fifty years.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Wow, and you still love it?

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Still love it? Yeah, wouldn't have it any other way.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Fantastic. Well again to the team at whisk me A
Butchery and to you Dave, congratulations on the pork and
leak sausage, the best sausage on the land.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Oh, thank you very much. We'd appreciate