A Hamilton family believes it's solved the age-old Kiwi problem of sausages rolling around on the barbecue – square sausages. But do they live up to the hype?
They aren't the type of sausages you would normally see on the barbeque, but creator Erik Arndt hopes square sausages, or squasages, will soon be a family favourite.
“I would love it to be the next marmite for New Zealand,” he says. “That would be fantastic.”
Mr Arndt is the innovator behind the square-shaped sausage, and it's not surprising he got the idea one day when he was manning the barbie.
“The sausages just kept burning because they wouldn't cook evenly, and somebody said ‘why don't we do a square sausage?’ I immediately went ‘yeah that's what we should be doing, but what would you call it?’ And we said ‘you have to call it what it is’. So we came up with squasage!”
Four years later, Aria Farms are making and selling their gluten and allergy-free squasages, which they believe to be the first of their kind.
“I've never been able to buy a square sausage anywhere, and of course when you're doing all the research you go online and you look at everything else that there is that's around,” says Mr Arndt.
Unlike normal sausages, the sqasauges are skinless, so in order to keep their square shape they're packaged in a dividing tray.
They may look similar to other sausages in the pack, but on the barbeque they're much easier to cook and there's no issue with uneven cooking or rolling around on the hot plate.
So would it pass the test with locals on the streets of Hamilton? Despite not everyone being convinced, the overall consensus was pretty good. But whether squasages will square up with other sausies on the market is yet to be seen.
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