Food fans challenged with creating new sausage flavour

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, we have joined forced with pork farm Wicks Manor to launch a special ‘design a sausage’ competition.

Food fans will be asked to invent their own perfect pork sausage flavour in the Wicks Manor ‘Great Sausage Mash Up’. All entries will be judged by three generations of the Howie family, owners of Wicks Manor, who will shortlist their three favourite flavour combinations. The creator of each shortlisted recipe will win a hamper of Wicks Manor goodies plus a £50 East of England Co-op food voucher.

The public will then vote for their favourite recipe which will be put into production and stocked exclusively in select East of England Co-op food stores in October in time for bonfire bangers. The limited-edition sausage will also bear the name of its creator on the packaging. 

The Howie family have been farming and producing premium Maldon pork at Wicks Manor since 1967 and today the local business is run by the brothers Fergus and Hamish Howie. 

Fergus commented: “We are extremely proud to be celebrating our 50th anniversary here at Wicks Manor, with three generations of family farming in Essex and the fourth generation in training!

“Launching this competition in partnership with the East of England Co-op is a fantastic way for us to mark the occasion and we are very much looking forward to sitting down as a family to go through what we hope will be some unique and tasty suggestions.”

Entrants are encouraged to fire up their imaginations and get creative to dream up their own flavour combinations – all suggestions are welcome whether they be classic, wild or wacky!

Roger Grosvenor, Joint Chief Executive at the East of England Co-op, said: “We are proud to champion local produce as part of our Sourced Locally initiative, and Wicks Manor sausages are a perfect example of the quality produce our region is famed for. We are really excited to hear the suggestions for a new flavour, and even more excited about trying it when it appears in our stores.”

Our Sourced Locally initiative encourages shoppers to buy local, seasonal produce. The scheme, which has ploughed £57million back into the region, is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year.