Pictured above: Mary Smith with the Buck in the Park
sausages she dreamed up.
Two new sausages designed by customers have gone on sale at
Croots Farm Shop & Kitchen this week as part of National
Sausage Week.
Buck in the Park - a venison sausage marinated in stout with
garlic and redcurrants - and Ketchup Sausage - a pork-based banger
flavoured with red sauce - were chosen as the winners in a
design-a-sausage competition run by Croots Farm Shop during British
Food Fortnight, which ran from September 19th to October 4th.
Customer Mary Smith, from Holbrook, created the Buck in the Park
flavour, while four-year-old Berty Jackson, from Belper, was chosen
as the winner in the children's competition for his idea of
combining pork and ketchup to make his ideal banger.
"We had some fantastic flavours suggested, with almost 50
entries in our design-a-sausage competition," said Steve Croot, who
runs Croots Farm Shop at Wirksworth Road, Duffield. "Customers were
really imaginative with their ideas."
The winning sausages are taking centre stage during National
Sausage Week, which runs from November 2nd to 8th. Croots will also
be staging a Sausage Festival on Saturday November 7th where a
number of its sausages will be available for sampling and
tasting.
The farm shop has become renowned for its bangers, which are
made on the premises by Croots' in-house butchers using free range
pork from Packington Pork, near Burton-upon-Trent. The shop sold
more than 20,000 lbs of sausages in its first year after opening in
June 2008.
It now has a range of around 30 different flavours, although not
all are on sale at the same time. Earlier this year it won a gold
star Great Taste Award for its black pudding sausage at the
'Oscars' of the food industry.
Mary won a £25 Croots voucher, while Berty picked up a
£25 Toys R Us voucher.