A Liverpool city region charcuterie selling ethically and locally sourced pig products is flying… the Baltic Triangle Podcast paid a visit to founder Andy Rogers to find out more. Tony McDonough reports
A charcuterie run from an industrial estate in Bootle is proving a hit with meat lovers across Liverpool city region.
Andy Rogers trained as a chef 20 years ago. His work took him to France where he ended up spending several years working for master charcutier Philippe Camdeborde in the foothills of the French Pyrenees.
A charcutier is a French name for a butcher who specialises in pork products. It is common in France to have separate butchers shops – those selling meats such as beef or lamb and charcuteries that specialise in pork products such as ham, bacon and sausages.
This month’s Baltic Triangle Podcast went to meet Andy who came back to the UK in 2013 and initially returned to working as a chef. He later worked for renowned Wirral butchers shop Edge & Sons.
After working in the shop in the day he would spend evenings in the back of the shop preparing his own pork products and eventually decided to work on the venture full-time. He launched North by Sud-Ouest close to his Seaforth home.
Now running it with his wife Dot, Andy has won numerous awards and his pig products are flying. He said: “I specialise in air-dried products. So that is Serrano ham or prosciutto and salamis.
“My influence is French but I don’t slavishly follow any rules. What makes the difference is the animals that are getting used.”
And that is the key to Andy’s approach. All his meat is ethically sourced from farms generally within a 30-mile radius. He explained: “You would be surprised how many farms there are not far from Liverpool.
“The quality of the farming is top notch. They do everything free range and have British traditional breeds.
“The whole point of, as best as I can make it, is in terms of using the right animals. That means animals that have lived outdoors, that have grown slowly and can cope with living out of doors because they are British breeds.
“They have had a better life – their welfare is very important. For me, as important as that – not less or more – is that kind of animal, when treated like that, tastes better too. It is the best of both worlds.”
Also featured on this month’s Baltic Triangle Podcast is linguistics professor Tony Crowley. He is a scouser at the University of Leeds. His third book on the scouse dialect – Liverpool – A Memoir of Words – is just out, published by Liverpool University Press.
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He comes up with a few revelations including that Liverpool had a distinctive accent as early as the 18th century and that the influence of Irish on the lingo has been slightly exaggerated.
To listen to the full interviews with Andy Rogers and Tony Crowley click here.