Lakeland community celebrates local farmer’s Guinness World Record for three-metre Cumberland sausage ring
A small Cumbrian town has made food history with a very large sausage.
Broughton-in-Furness pig breeder and meat producer, Gary McClure, established the record for the world’s largest Cumberland sausage ring on the day the historic market town celebrated gaining its charter on 1 August 1575.
The record-breaking sausage measured 3.3 metres in diameter, smashing the previous record of 1.5 metres, and weighed 135 kilograms. It took six and a half hours to produce – excluding the time taken to prepare the ingredients – and 90 minutes to cook.
Made to a traditional recipe with 90% locally-reared pork, the giant continuous sausage ring was completely hand made, the filling stuffed into natural hog casings using a 1953-built hand stuffer.
A band of helpers took part in the massive sausage-making operation at Low Aulthurstside Farm, Broughton-in-Furness, under the close scrutiny of Guinness World Records adjudicator, Ben Backhouse.
Arranged on a huge griddle custom manufactured by Handmark Engineering Co Ltd of nearby Barrow-in-Furness, it took 12 people to hoist the sausage ring onto a tractor-drawn trailer for the two-mile journey to the market square. There it was cooked – barbecue style – weighed, officially declared a Guinness World Record, and eaten by the assembled community.
McClure commented: “My grandfather bred pigs and my father was a butcher so I used to help with sausage making as a child. I was around five and a half years old when I made my first Cumberland sausage but I never dreamt of breaking any records. This has been a real community effort. I couldn’t have done it without everyone’s support and I’m proud of our achievement.”