Understanding How Sausage Is Made

Trying something different can be a scary proposition. You won’t know until it’s too late if what you are doing is going to work or backfire. It can be especially frightening for business owners considering blazing their own path forward. But when the results turn out in favor of your plan, it offers vindication that the quickest way isn’t always the best way to complete a task.

Such is the case at Vincent’s Meat Market when we are making our sausage. Because our process doesn’t take shortcuts, we can provide a better product for you and your family. Understanding how sausage is made in our butcher shop allows you to see and taste why our way is better.

Preparing the Ingredients

The most important part of any food product is the ingredients, and nowhere is this truer than in sausage. Factory sausage can be full of additives and preservatives that remove nutrients and only function to fill space. That is because factory sausage generally doesn’t use the best meat—instead, they tend to use scraps and organs. All of this serves to lower costs, but the only thing that decreases is the potential enjoyment of the meal.

At Vincent’s, we take the opposite approach. We start by using only the best cuts of meat, including pork butt that we trim and debone in-store. The pork butt then goes through a special grinder before we add seasonings. While some sausage makers will use artificial taste enhancers, we create our unique flavor by using simple ingredients like salt, pepper, and fennel seeds.

Into the Casing

In a factory, the goal is to produce as much sausage for the lowest cost possible in as little time as possible. But while efficiency might be number one, this causes quality to take a back seat. In a traditional meat factory, lack of emphasis on quality can lead to cutting corners to save a few pennies. The casings for the sausages often use low-quality ingredients such as cellulose, collagen, and even plastic, in some places. The final product is only complete after it goes through a hydraulic stuffer with the ends twisted off before it gets packaged for the long journey that awaits the sausage before eventually reaching the supermarket.

We don’t think you should have to settle for whatever they can find lying around the factory. At Vincent’s Meat Market, we use all-natural hog casings for our pork sausage. Likewise, our popular lamb sausage uses a lamb casing. We also believe in tying off the sausage with string. Not only does this look better, but it will also help keep an accurate count of how many links remain.

Understanding how sausage is made lets you know everything that is going into the food that you and your family eat. In business since 1954, Vincent’s Meat Market is the premier location to buy sausage in the Bronx.