Raymond processor on a roll with award-winning sausages

In lounges across the land, buffalo wings are a popular choice with beer. But now a Raymond business has won awards for its real bison products.

The firm’s Old Country Buffalo Carpaccio has won a gold certificate from the Albert Meat Processors Association. It also earned bronze-level recognition for its buffalo bacon, as well as its specialty “Tex Mex” Sausages.

Old Country Sausage and its owner, Klaus Schurmann also brought home a silver certificate for its pepperoni sausages, not made from buffalo meat. The awards were presented late last month at the Alberta Meat and Sausage Competition in Canmore.

“Klaus saw a challenge and rose to meet it,” says Mary Lee, his partner and the firm’s co-owner. He used “his considerable knowledge and skills prove there is more opportunity for bison products in the field of culinary arts than buffalo burgers.”

Diane Mackenzie, president of the Alberta Bison Association, says that awards show pure buffalo meat can be made into excellent sausages with out the use of fillers, chemical or binders. All of his sausages – sold every summer at the Lethbridge Farmers Market, and year-round at the Raymond store – are made without MSG, sugar, flour and wheat crumbs.

They’re also being offer as samples today and Saturday at Ag-Expo in Lethbridge.

“You don’t have to blend (bison) with something else,” says Mackenzie. “It’s a wonderful, juicy sausage.”

Susan Kastelan, outgoing president of the meat processors’ group, says the certificates acknowledge the quality of the sausages entered by Old Country. Four independent judges, all well-schooled in traditional ways of sausage-making, were asked to pick Alberta’s best.

“It’s a quality competition,” she says. “You’re coming up against the masters.”

Entrants are awarded judging points for outward appearance, colour, flavour and textures as well as the sausage meat formulation. For Gold certificate winners, entries must be within three points of perfect.
“It’s a recognition of the best,” she says. Prospects for more buffalo-based products will be discussed later this spring in Lethbridge. The Alberta Bison Association will hold a marketing conference, June 22-23 at Lethbridge Community College – and Schurmann will be a key participant in its International Evening of Bison Cuisine.