The region's best butchers were put to the test at the weekend, with five Bundaberg businesses all snagging places in a coveted Australian Meat Industry Council event.
The (Queensland) Australian Meat Industry Council’s annual Wide Bay Region Sausage King, Best Butchers Burger and Smallgoods Competition was held at Burnett Bowls Club, with competitors vying for a spot in the next state-wide round.
Barritt’s Butchery, Bargara Meats, Bundy Chop Shop, Zacs Meats and Ken’s Kepnock Butchery were all winners across a multitude of categories on Sunday including best kabana, poultry sausage, bacon and best gourmet burgers.
The team at Zacs Meats were awarded in 13 of the 14 categories including jerky/biltong, continental sausage, bacon rasher and more.
Zacs Meats Owner Stephen Austin said it was great to be recognised with these awards at the AMIC as recognition for the hard work the team put in to producing the highest quality products.
“It is great to get some recognition for the hard work you put in because you try all the different ideas and you don’t really know what they are like until you put them into these competitions,” Stephen said.
“Every product that we enter is for sale, and while sometimes we put in one or two different ones the rest are available for purchase every day of the week by the public.”
Stephen said the team tried their luck with a couple of new flavours this year, including their gourmet burger patty which was made up of pork, apple and walnut.
“I spend most of the time playing around and we kept the flavours pretty simple which seemed to work great,” he said.
“We won two new awards this year which were the best bacon and the best gourmet burger with our pork, apple and walnut flavour patty.”
The annual AMIC awards has been operating for 20 years.
Competitions are held throughout Queensland, starting in March and running through to October, when regional winners progress to the state finals to determine which butchers are truly entitled to wear the crown for best sausage, best burger and best smallgoods in Queensland.
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