Butcher Kents of Dunoon has picked up first prize in the Scottish Beef Sliced Sausage Championship 2024.
Kents of Dunoon’s beef sliced sausage – or ‘Lorne sausage’ as it is often known as in Scotland – reportedly “swept the boards” at the recent championships, which were staged by SCB and judged by trade members and consumers.
SCB executive manager Gordon King said the bar in this year’s competition was “set very high” with “top level” entries being submitted by craft butchers from all over the country.
King said: “It’s great to see a small independent craft butcher who pays such care and attention to their product lifting a national award. Richard and his team are producing a fantastic beef sliced sausage and it’s just reward for them that the secret is out, and the rest of the world now knows where to source the best in Scotland. It’s a worthy champion.”
Owner of Kents of Dunoon, Richard Longster said: “We currently make around 100 separate 1,700g slabs of sliced sausages each week, to meet demand from our local customers and the cafes, restaurants and hotels that we supply nearby. But our sausage producer David Walsh and I will happily go into overdrive if more customers want to try out Dunoon’s national championship-winning sliced sausage.”
Longster took over the shop with his wife Susanne five years ago, which SCB described as a “major shift” from his career as a gamekeeper in Perthshire. His father had been a butcher in Dalmuir.
Longster said: “Dad taught me everything, he could as quickly as he could. He’s been a butcher since he was 14 years old. So, everything is second nature to him. He is so experienced and knowledgeable, and I couldn’t have done this without him.
“I had to learn on the job and dad was always popping in to support us. One of the many skills he passed on to me was how to make sliced sausage – a product that would go on to be our biggest seller and now a Scottish Champion.”
He said he had “tweaked” the recipe slightly, adding spice and black pepper to the beef brisket sausage mix.
“We know it’s a good sausage, but we never dared hope it would be judged the best in Scotland,” he said. “Sliced sausage is an iconic Scottish foodstuff – up there with haggis as a national dish – and there’s not a butcher in the land who wouldn’t want to lift this championship title.
“Previous winners have been butchers I admire, with skills I aspire to, so it’s just amazing to be on the roll of honour alongside them.”
