Butcher boasts prize winning pork

Michael O''neill and Stephen Hollis 197330 Picture: JED LANYON

By Jed Lanyon

Healesville’s Main Street Quality Butchers and Smokehouse has earned the title of best bacon and kabana in the Melbourne A region by the Australian Meat Industry Council.

The butchers now have their eyes set on the state finals awards later in the year, where they could be recognised as producing the best bacon and kabana across Victoria.

This local butcher shop is no stranger to success, having won many awards in previous years, including the award for best bacon in Victoria in 2007.

Stephen Hollis said that his prize winning pork is the perfect pairing if you’re looking to make bacon and eggs or enjoy kabana on a cheese platter.

To go along with those awards, the butcher shop earned second in sausage, third in traditional sausage and third in kransky this year.

“We do all our own, we do the whole lot ourselves, and we do it from scratch with the bacon.

“We buy in the middles, we process it and naturally smoke it.

“And with the kabana… we know what goes into ours, it’s all just straight pork and our own special recipe after that.”

Mr Hollis, who has owned the shop for over 20 years, said he drops off samples of his meats in Lilydale, where they are then judged on the presentation of the raw product and then for presentation and taste of the cooked product.

“I’m really happy, I always try to do my best when it comes to this stuff… I always try to give people good value for their money.”