Sizzling success for butchery

The best of the best – that was the judges’ verdict on Warkworth Butchery’s dry cured middle bacon at the 100% New Zealand Bacon & Ham Awards last month.

Butchery owner Rob Lees and his team were already happy after winning two gold medals and a silver at the awards ceremony, but hearing that they’d won the Supreme Award was the icing on the cake.

“We were stoked,” he said. “We knew it was pretty good bacon already, but to get the top award was amazing.”

It was third time lucky for Lees, who first entered the awards not long after taking over the business, winning a bronze medal in 2014. His next attempt was medal-free, and there wasn’t a competition for three years after that.

However, the reinstated awards this year attracted nearly 200 entries and competition was tough – judges re-tasted several times to narrow down the gold medal winners and supreme awards for bacon and ham produced using 100% NZ born and raised pork.

Lees says there’s no real secret to the process that sees around 100kg of bacon produced and sold from the butchery every week.

“It’s just very traditional,” he said. “It’s all dry cured and we just use sugar, salt and smoke. And we do a naturally cured, with no preservative, that takes a lot longer.”

Warkworth wasn’t the only local butcher to taste bacon success – Mangawhai Meat Shop’s dry cured streaky earned a gold medal and Maungaturoto’s Maungi Meats won a bronze for its middle bacon.

There’s no resting on lardon laurels for the Warkworth Butchery team, however, as they are now busy setting their sights on snag success, prepping 10 separate entries for the 25th Great New Zealand Sausage Competition, which will be judged later this month.

“We’ve never entered that one before,” Lees said. “That one’s a lot more high profile and attracts a lot more entries, but we’ll see how we get on.”

GOLD
Warkworth Butchery – Dry Cured Middle Bacon; Preservative Free Dry Cured Bacon
Mangawhai Meat Shop – Dry Cured Streaky Bacon

SILVER
Warkworth Butchery – Dry Cured Shoulder Bacon

BRONZE
Maungi Meats, Maungaturoto – Middle Bacon