• the category you believe the product belongs in (please refer to the enclosed category guide to determine the category your entry belongs in, or contact us if you are unsure). You will note some categories have a naming right sponsor, this does NOT mean you are required to use their products in your entries if you wouldn’t normally.

• the cooking method e.g. pan-fry, simmer, no-cooking

• the casing they are produced in

• the spice mix ingredients supplier - please note any supplier can be used in the competition (doesn’t need to be Dunninghams)

• a list of the protein and main flavour ingredients

You can only enter a sausage once in the competition. i.e. you cannot enter the same sausage into multiple categories. Make sure you include your store name and contact details. Retail Meat New Zealand will be in contact to confirm your entry has been received and if necessary, advise you of any category changes.

Phone 09 489 0879 or email nicole@rmnz.co.nz with any enquiries.

SEND YOUR PRODUCTS TO US

During the week Monday 25 August - Thursday 28 August 2025, send your freshest entries to us using an overnight courier of your choice or utilise the free chilled transport offered through Big Chill. Further information including address details etc will be provided with your entry confirmation. All entries, except Continental Ready-To-Eat, and Heat n’ Eat, will be frozen until judging.

Our recommendation for a more environmentally friendly way to send us your entries would be to use:

Fully recyclable clear plastic meat trays (PET1) or newer cardboard/ sugar cane meat trays. Foam meat trays are not recyclable and end up in landfills.
Gel ice packs work best to keep the precious cargo safe and cool. Bags of ice can melt with the water leaking through, making the packaging very wet, and in some cases, affecting the condition of the product. We can also re-purpose the gel packs.
Please consider using chilltainers which are a great substitute for poly boxes as polystyrene is very difficult to recycle and harsher on the environment.

JUDGING

Category judging takes place in Auckland over six days between Tuesday 2 - Wednesday 10 September 2025. Sausages are judged in their uncooked state by a technical judge, followed by an assessment of the cooked product by two aesthetic judges. Marks are awarded for visual appearance, technical composition and taste, texture and aroma. More weighting will be placed on the taste, texture and aroma criteria.

NEW UPDATED JUDGING FORMAT

As the competition grows, some categories are receiving high entry numbers, making the previous judging format unsustainable. To maintain fairness while allowing more entries, we are introducing a Z-score standardisation* process to ensure consistency across multiple judging panels. These changes help us continue celebrating the best sausages in New Zealand while keeping the competition fair and efficient.

*Z-score standardisation adjusts the raw scores to account for different scoring tendencies between different judging panels. This will ensure fairness in medal allocation based on percentile thresholds.

Scores are converted into Z-scores using the following formula:

Z = (X - μ) / σ (X = score, μ = panel average, σ = standard deviation)

CLICK HERE TO SEE A DETAILED INFOGRAPH OF THE UPDATED JUDGING FORMAT.

People’s Choices Judging takes place in Auckland on Thursday 25 September 2025. The winner will be determined by public vote.

FINAL SUPREME JUDGING

The top-scoring sausage (category champion winner) in each category may progress through to the final judging.

All category champion medal-winning products will be mystery shopped between Monday 15 - Thursday 18 September 2025.

The final Supreme Judging will be held in Auckland on Wednesday 24 September 2025.

Sausage Mixer Awards

The Great New Zealand Sausage Competition awards ceremony will take place on Tuesday 21 October 2025, in at Wynyard Pavillion in Auckland as a casual awards event. Further details will be available and sent out in due course.