Sausage Summit

AN ex-patriate Bexhillian has brokered a virtual "sausage summit" which will bring together the expertise of one of Germany's best-known sausage-makers with that of a Sidley firm.

Lawrence Wharton, of Cooden, says: "My daughter Caroline is teaching English in Germany at the moment as part of her degree.

"The father of two of the boys she teaches is the famous (in Germany anyway) sausage-maker Uwe Khler.

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"He told her that he has always wanted to make English 'bangers' but doesn't know anything about them and asked her if there were any famous sausage-makers in her town, Bexhill.

"She passed the request on to me and I went to see G.M.Matthews in Turkey Road.

"Incredibly, they wanted to know how to make German sausages.

"As a result we have arranged a 'sausage knowledge' exchange."

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Now Uwe, the fourth generation boss of the Hosfeismar-based business himself plans to come over to Bexhill to meet his counterpart, award-winning Turkey Road butcher Gerald Matthews whose family firm was founded by his late father, Tom, more than 50 years ago.

Lawrence says: "Both the English and German sausage makers are quite excited about it."

Uwe will be meeting Gerald's manager, Alan Lee, rather than the boss himself.

But Gerald is delighted about the forthcoming information exchange.

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He said: "We are quite excited about it because it would be a link - to coin a phrase - and it would be interesting to see how he does it and I am quite sure that German sausage-making and English are very different - from the ingredients we use and even down to the mix. They like a very coarse sausage.

"Any experience and information you can pick up is good information...."

Asked if he would be introducing a German sausage into his product line, he said: "We will certainly look at it. At the end of the day, our customers will determine whether or not we sell them.

"We did try offering a variety of German sausage and, more recently, Polish.

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"People did pick them up and try them but they didn't come back for more.

"The English sausages we make are what they like - but you might just pick up some ideas and employ them so they 'lean' (geddit) that way."

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