School Food Matters and the School Farms Network have teamed up with the Real Food Festival to create the ultimate competition for school children – The Real Sausage Challenge!

Festival Children's Sponsor .
School farms from across the country are competing for the coveted title of Real Sausage Champion and have been rearing a piglet and then creating a sizzling sausage using their own unique recipe. Each school has been creating a presentation to illustrate their journey from weaner to sausage with the final three schools - one primary school and two secondary schools - travelling to Earls Court in London to present eight of their finished sausages to the judges, who include Raymond Blanc and Lawrence Dallaglio and Willie Harcourt-Cooze at the Real Food Festival on Friday 7th May 2010. The primary school and secondary school winners will be presented with their award and given a prestigious prize for their school farm, compliments of competition sponsors, Mears. Sacla,’ as the Festival Children’s sponsor, will also be providing a prize to the winner of the sausage taste off between the primary school and secondary school winners.

Pigs must be reared on the school farm, either bred on site or bought as weaners. Pupils must be involved in all the activities from rearing through to the design of the sausage mix and packaging. Stephanie Wood, from School Food Matters, says she has been delighted by the response to the competition. She says: "We are very excited about this competition and have had a fantastic response from the school farms. The Real Food Festival is all about quality food, prepared lovingly by small producers so we’re asking the schools to produce a festival-worthy sausage which will catch the eye and the taste buds of a panel of food experts and celebrity chefs. May the best sausage win!”

Read more about it in the Guardian article 29/04/10

School Progress Blog...

Each week, we will be featuring one of the participating schools so that you can see how they are rising to the Real Sausage Challenge. See here to read the farm blog and how our schools are getting along...

To read the competition terms and conditions, click here