J Sainsbury's dis-service to Cumberland sausages

7 March 2011

 (no reply as yet 25-3-11)

The Sausage Buyer

Sainsbury’s Supermarkets

London

EC1N 2HT

Dear Sainsbury’s

A few days ago from your Shrewsbury store, I bought a pack of your ‘be good to yourself’ extra lean Cumberland sausages. Having now cooked and attempted to eat them, I have to say that their taste and texture couldn’t be much further away from the genuine article.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that Cumberland sausages should contain roughly-minced pork so that the meat retains its texture when cooked, whereas your sausage filling is more like the consistency of a paté. Cumberland sausages should be rather more spicy than other sausages, with sage usually predominating, whereas yours have little taste of anything. Cumberland sausages should contain more than 80% pork, about half of which should carry some integral fat (e.g. belly pork), whereas yours contain only 70% pork and the texture suggests that it is mechanically recovered meat. Authentic Cumberland sausage mix can have a little water added for the purpose of lubricating its insertion into the skin, whereas yours have water as the second listed ingredient after pork, suggesting (this is a guess) that its inclusion rate is more than 10%, which in turn suggests to me that it’s being used as a cheap bulking agent.

Such is the high quality of proper Cumberland sausage that it can be served with pride as a dinner party main course, perhaps with mustard mashed potato, sautéd shredded spring cabbage, and an onion marmalade relish. I’m sorry, but aside from your product’s striking lack of authenticity, the eating quality was non-existent and I wouldn’t feed it to the family poodle. Indeed, this product exemplifies much that is wrong with some foods being sold in British supermarkets. In addition to being unnecessarily overly-manufactured, you’re actually misleading customers because a Cumberland sausages with ‘less than 3% fat’ is a contradiction in terms. It’s like offering Custard Creams with less than 3% ‘cream’. With so little fat or cream, the product simply cannot be a Cumberland sausage or Custard Cream respectively.

When reading on the pack that ‘We’re sure you’ll love this product’ I’m left wondering who at Sainsury’s is accountable for that statement. Perhaps you could serve these Cumberland sausages to Justin King for lunch and then ask if he’ll sign it off. I have, of course, followed your advice on the pack about returning the product for a full refund. But that really isn’t the point, as I’m sure you gather.

Best wishes.

Yours faithfully