An east Auckland business has been recognised nationally in the culinary art of making the perfect sausage.
Marbled Delicatessen, with two stores – in Picton Street, Howick, and in the Farm Cove shops, picked up two prized Fork awards at the recent Dunninghams Great New Zealand Sausage Competition.
It’s the premier sausage judging contest in the land and for a business now in its third year, Marbled has already a fine track record – six awards over the past two years, with four collected last year.
Darron White says the sausage-tasting judges had an even tougher job in 2024 because there was “a lot more competition this year”.
There were more than 800 differently flavoured bangers entered in 13 categories by over 100 sausage-makers from across the country.
Blair Welch says Marbled is particularly proud in receiving the “pretty special” category-winning Golden Fork in Flavours of the World for its variety of Boerewors.
He, and sausage-maker Darren “Del Boy” Picton, say it took some time getting to the right recipe, because being a business that’s in-tune with its customers, they heard many of their views, especially from South Africans who live in the east Auckland area.
“It’s an emotional sausage with South Africans. Everyone had their opinion,” says Welch.
They listened to a lot of feedback, “tweaked” the ingredients and recipe, and eventually got to a “happy medium”, says Picton.
Marbled also received a Silver Fork in the Traditional category for its Welsh Dragon, with its meat being pork (white), and red chilli and green leek providing the others colours of the flag of Wales – red and green.
The Marble men say the Welsh Dragon is a popular favourite with customers and it’s “quite spicy”.
Picton says the awards are an important acknowledgement: “It makes us proud and is an appreciation for all of the hard work.”
Welch says: “It’s not been easy. It’s been a pretty tough year. We say a big thank-you to our loyal customers. They keep coming in and keep supporting us.”
The Marbled team is also fully committed to putting back into the community and say they’re involved with many “community-oriented” organisations such as sports clubs.
Another popular initiative they got input from customers was for a competition that created their own Aloha Chicken sausage, with chicken, bacon, pineapple and red pepper ingredients.
“We had really good engagement from the community for that,” says Welch.
