Dobbie’s Butchery dominates NT’s annual sausage awards

Judges have declared a clear winner in the Northern Territory’s sausage stakes. Say hello to our new sausage king (and queen).

The Northern Territory has new sausage royalty, with a suburban Darwin butcher dominating this year’s Australian Meat Industry Council sausage king competition.

Nightcliff shopping centre’s Dobbie’s Butchery won five out of nine categories at the prestigious industry awards, as well as picking up a second and two third places in the eight sections they entered.

Behind every king there’s a queen and 40-year industry veteran Richard Dobbie acknowledged his wife Rachael who has helped turn the three-year business into a go-to for Darwin meat lovers.

Dobbie’s took home winners’ trophies for gourmet burger, traditional pork sausage, gourmet open class, traditional beef sausage and lamb burger.

Dobbie's Butchery from left to right Terry Fauser, Brett Thompson, Rachael Dobbie, Richard Dobbie and Rob Wang

A 40-year industry veteran, Richard has been in Darwin since 1991 working out of various outlets including Coles and Woolworths honing skills he first learnt during his apprenticeship in Adelaide.

Rachael, who’s been in the industry a decade, runs the butcher’s marketing and social media and value-adds Dobbie’s chicken products with the flavours and ingredients that turn a meal into an experience.

But it was the sausages that were being judged by AMIC and despite having never entered the awards before, Dobbie’s scooped the pool.

Former Hawthorn football coach Alan Jeans once famously said of sausages, you can grill them, curry them or fry them “but in the end they’re still sausages” – a point Richard challenges.

“There’s a lot of different sausages,” he said.

“You’ve got dry sausages, you’ve got Italian sausages which are a more raw product, where other sausages have got more ingredients, more meal.

Richard Dobbie and Rachael Dobbie with some of the award winning sausages.

“It is about the seasoning, but it’s the technique of putting them together, which is like anything else. You can have a great tasting pie but if you bite into the pie and it squirts out the other end, it’s no good to anyone.

“Consistency is the key. We weigh all our ingredients, I buy in a certain grade of trim every week, we weigh our fat so our fat content is consistent, the lean meat is consistent, everything that goes into it is weighed. That’s where the training comes in.

“Our business plan is service quality and consistency of product.”

In just three years Dobbie’s has moved across the aisle at Nightcliff to larger premises and gone from Richard and Rachael working the business to 14 staff including 10 full timers. They sell 650kg a week of handmade sausages, or about 9100 over the seven days.

A combination of greater attention to sausage preparation and the cost-of-living crisis have seen sausages transition from a BBQ staple to a main meal.

“Some people go to a butcher and they can’t afford a scotch fillet but at half price they can afford a decent sausage and put two on a meal and have vegetables around it and it’s the same as eating a steak,” Richard said.

“Money’s hard everywhere and there’s nothing worse than spending your money on something that doesn’t taste good. With sausages you need to have a good sausage and need to do the right thing.”

Originally published as Dobbie’s Butchery dominates NT’s annual sausage awards