Smokin’ hot butchers aiming for repeat win

By Dion Teasdale
HEALESVILLE’S Main Street Quality Butchers is on target to take out the title of Victoria’s Best Bacon for the second year in a row.
Earlier this month the butcher’s smoked bacon took out first place in the Melbourne A section of the Victorian Smallgoods Competition, run by the Australian Meat Industry Council.
The business beat about a dozen other regional producers to win top spot and will now head to the state finals in October, with the overall state champion to be announced in November.
Main Street Quality Butchers won the title of Best Bacon in Victoria last November and since then has enjoyed a boom in bacon sales and national media attention.
The bacon, which is cured for 48 hours and then smoked on premises for 19 hours, has featured on Channel Nine’s flagship travel program Getaway, and been highlighted in magazines such as Woman’s Day and Delicious.
Main Street Quality Butchers proprietor Stephen Hollis said he was delighted with the recent win and was confident of taking out back-to-back state titles.
“We went back to the competition this year keen to win again after our success last year,” he said.
“It’s a pretty good result to come first for our region and we’re very excited about heading back to the state finals in October.”
Mr Hollis said demand for the prize-winning bacon had skyrocketed since the butcher won the state title last year.
“When we started producing our smoked bacon last year we were doing about 15 kilograms a week,” he said.
“Now production has increased six-fold and we are doing over 100kg a week just to keep up with demand.”
Mr Hollis said customers were travelling from as far away as Essendon, Woodend and Eildon to try the bacon, and the business was now supplying bacon to many Yarra Valley restaurants and bed and breakfasts.
“The reputation of our bacon has really snowballed over the past 12 months,” he said.
Mr Hollis’ colleague, butcher Shane Frazzetto, said the success of the bacon was easy to explain.
“The bacon we produce is top-quality and now that we’ve been making it for over a year we’ve got the consistency right, so it’s spot on every time,” he said.
Australia Meat Industry Council member services manager Grant Philpots said the butcher’s recent regional win was very impressive.
“To win back-to-back regionally is a very hard task and these guys have done a great job,” he said.
“They can feel confident going into the state finals, and can feel very proud of the bacon they are producing.”