The University of Wisconsin–Madison campus will host a special meat product competition Jan. 21-25. The event is a satellite contest of the IFFA Quality Competition, a large international meat judging event held every three years in Frankfurt, Germany.

This is the second time organizers have held an offsite contest in conjunction with the main competition in Frankfurt. The offsite contest was started to help facilitate the participation of American meat processors, who can face difficulties trying to ship their meat product entries to the European Union.

At Madison’s satellite contest, sausage and ham products from Wisconsin and around the nation will be judged for a variety of quality attributes by members of the German Butchers Association (GBA). These same judges will then preside over the main IFFA Quality Competition in Germany, which will be held in May.

Entries judged in Madison will be given the same treatment as those judged in Frankfurt, and all will be compared against a gold standard. Of the more than 2,500 meat products that will be assessed for the competition, around 500 will be evaluated in Madison.

The three-day event will take place in the main lobby of the Discovery Building, located at 330 North Orchard Street. It runs 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. each day.

Members of the media and the public are welcome to attend an opening ceremony at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 21 and to spend time observing the judging process. While the judging area will be roped off, onlookers should have a good view, and representatives from the GBA will be on hand to explain what’s going on and answer questions.

“It’s a great chance for people to learn how an international meat product judging competition works and learn about the quality meat products made across this country, especially here in Wisconsin,” says Jeff Sindelar, a UW­–Madison associate professor and extension meat specialist in the Department of Animal Sciences, who helped organize the event.

The Madison-based event is being put on by the American Association of Meat Processors, the German Butchers Association and UW­–Madison’s extension meat science program.

For more information, contact Jeff Sindelar at jsindelar@wisc.edu.

Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison