October is traditionally the month we celebrate the sausage. As a family with over 125 years of sausage-making heritage, we’ve seen some things change—and others stay remarkably the same.
Pigs have changed. They’re now bred to be leaner, and the ways we measure, and control recipes and processes are far more refined than the old “by eye” method. Yet the core process—mincing the meat and mixing in the ingredients to release the proteins—remains much the same.
Machinery has evolved dramatically. My grandfather used a piston filler, where meat was packed into a drum and squeezed out through a nozzle, with the butcher regulating the fill and size using forefinger and thumb. Today, we use vacuum fillers that draw the meat in under consistent pressure. These machines portion and twist the sausage to a set length and weight.
More recently, we’ve introduced machine learning. Our machines now self-adjust to produce sausages accurate to a fraction of a gram—the weight of an ant! The servo drives (motors) are intelligent, using only the energy needed for each action. Machines “talk” to each other and capture data, allowing staff to monitor variables and optimise processes.
Not all changes are driven by productivity. Some challenge tradition and culture. Sausage casings are a good example. For 6,000 years, natural casings made from animal intestines were the only option. In 1925, cellulose casings were introduced, made from cotton linters and wood pulp. Then in the 1960s, collagen casings—derived from animal hides, bones, and tendons—emerged, originally developed for medical sutures. More recently, alginate casings have appeared, applied by passing sausages through a coating tank. These offer lower cost and higher productivity.
With our heritage, we still produce large volumes of sausages in natural casing and are increasingly using collagen. Alginate isn’t for us. It doesn’t cook the same way, and we know the body struggles to break it down—sometimes it isn’t digested at all.
Natural casing is part of our culture and heritage, but household cooking habits are changing. Lard is rare in modern kitchens, and the air fryer has replaced the “ten fat sausages sizzling in the pan.” Natural casing can dry out in electric ovens or air fryers and become tough. Sausages must be basted with a little oil to prevent this.
Collagen casing doesn’t dry out to the same extent, and we’re seeing customer preferences shift. However, your sausages are made, enjoy them—and let’s celebrate sausages this October.
“You can’t change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust your sails.”