Cairns butcher snags gold awards for regional Sausage King and Best Butchers Burgers competition

Edge Hill Butchery claimed four titles at the Australian Meat Industry Council's annual Tropical Region Sausage King, Best Butchers Burger and Smallgoods competition on Sunday, taking out the top gongs for the Pork, Gourmet and Poultry Sausage categories and also winning gold in the Best Butcher's Gourmet Burger.

The regional winners will now progress to the state finals, to find the butchers producing the best sausage, best burger and best smallgoods in Queensland later this year, ahead of the national finals in February.

Edge Hill Butchery owners Rod and Julie Leaver and their team are no strangers to success, having claimed numerous awards for their products in the past, with both their gold-winning burger and the winning gourmet sausage claiming third placings in the national titles in 2019.

Mr Leaver said it was exciting to be taking a range of products to the state finals, including their gourmet Canadian maple bacon pork sausage and their winning gourmet burger, made using Wagyu beef.

"We put a lot of love into our products," he said.

"We use free-range pork and the bacon off the pigs is sent away to smoked the old-fashioned way. Our chicken and pistachio sausages also use free-range chicken.

"We actually won first, second and third for our gourmet burgers.

"Sometimes we take a single product down but this time we have a few chances to win."

Mr Leaver said all of their winning products were popular offerings at the butchery.

Other category winners scoring gold awards were Malones Butchers from Port Douglas with Best Butchers Beef Burger and Australian Lamb Sausage, Cross Custom Meats winning the Traditional Australian Beef Sausage, Kabana and Boneless Leg Ham, Russo's Quality Meats from Mareeba winning Continental Sausage, Marsh Butchers winning Bacon and Pre Cooked Scalded Sausage and Babinda Meat Mart, in the Leg Ham on Bone category.

AMIC Queensland state manager Roger Desailly congratulated all of the region's winners.

"The quality of entries this year from the tropical region were exceptional and proved once again that our local independent butchers are producing and delivering a high quality, value for money and consumer responsive product, that is catering to a diverse range of customer tastes and is constantly innovating," Mr Desailly said.