Best bangers revealed at annual South Holland, Deepings and Boston Butcher’s Pride Lincolnshire Sausage competition with top entries from Boston, Holbeach, Gosberton, Boston, Moulton Chapel and Spalding

The battle to find our best bangers proved a close contest once again… but this year a new champion was crowned.

The 13th annual Butcher’s Pride competition saw judges tuck into 24 different sausages from South Holland, the Deepings and Boston in a bid to find this year’s top tastes.

The competition was split into two categories, Lincolnshire Sausage and Speciality Sausage - which had a weird and wide variety of entries - including pizza, Guinness, stilton, game and sweet chilli flavours.

After two years on top, Bycroft’s of Boston was finally toppled in the Lincolnshire Sausage category, with regular entrant M&H Butchers in Donington scooping top prize for the first time. Its mark of 158 out of 200 also saw it claim the top score of the day.

In second spot was Gosberton’s Grange Farm with Boston’s Carl Dunham in third, the top three all scoring extremely closely.

But there was no separating the top tastes in the Speciality Sausage section, with the award shared between a business established more than a century ago, and one which opened last year.

Tied in first spot was Holbeach’s G Shearer and Son with a cheese and tomato flavoured Pizza De’Shearer and Richer of Moulton Chapel - which opened last year - which caught the tastebuds with a pork and stilton entry.

In second was Shearer’s Welsh Dragon, and third went to a pork and sweet chilli entry from Spalding’s Bennett Butchers.

Highly commended in the Lincolnshire section were Shearer’s sausage and a Richer of Moulton Chapel gluten-free entry.

This year’s five-strong panel of judges was Butcher’s Price chairman and founder Sir John Hayes, Boston College catering and hospitality lecturer Carl Smith, Fran East of Team Lincolnshire, Victoria Burden of Blackfriars Theatre and Arts Centre and Duncan Browne, representing LincsOnline and the Lincolnshire Free Press.

Each sausage was marked out of 40, with up to 10 up for grabs per category: appearance, texture, flavour and taste.

MP Sir John was delighted to see the winning entries come from within his South Holland and the Deepings constituency.

“It was great to see some fresh winners,” he said.

“For the winner to be back in South Holland was a treat, and this is the first time a winner has come from Donington, which is good.

“For the winners to be spread out across the area shows the strength of our butchers.”

This year’s event was once again organised by Boston College’s Adrian Walker-Slade and hosted by Spalding’s Cley Hall Hotel, whose staff cooked the bangers to perfection.

“There was a wide range of entries this year from independent butchers in the local area, and it was really positive to see the engagement from all, entering into the categories of Lincolnshire and speciality sausages,” said organiser Adrian.

“Picking up entries during the week it was great to see how busy the butchers were, with a steady stream of customers coming into each shop and supporting independent business.

“The tasting went smoothly, with a steady stream of sausages cooked to perfection by Gemma (Williams) and team at Cley Hall.

“Detailed scoring and intense discussion followed, with winners announced at the end.

“Some of the butchers were present for the announcements and it was great to see their hard work and entries acknowledged by Sir John and the panel.”

Representattives from G. Shearer and Son and Richer of Moulton Chapel - who both secured 152 marks - were on hand to watch the winners announced.

“It’s nerve-racking to be here for the results, but the feeling of winning is amazing,” said Alice Taylor of G. Shearer & Son.

“We’ve always liked to have a bit of fun with our speciality sausages and the names, and Pizza De’Shearer has gone down well.

“A customer asked us for a tomato-based sausage, so we thought we’d come up with a pizza one.

“The Lincolnshire is our best seller so it’s amazing for that to be highly commended as well.”

Nick Richer set up shop in Moulton Chapel in October but is no stranger to the competition, having tasted success over the years when he worked for George Adams & Son.

“We’re very pleased,” he said

“It’s been well received by the locals and further afield.

“We like to try different flavours of sausage and test them out, it’s our customers who choose what we do.

“Thirteen years on and still a winner, I can’t complain. Hopefully pork and stilton will be on the barbecues this summer.”