A COTSWOLD food emporium is making supper-time sizzle with its own range of proper sausages.

Fillet & Bone, which launched a year ago in a centuries-old butchers’ shop in Chipping Campden, has started making bangers free from any preservatives, additives or rusk.

Butcher Ben Allen, fresh from an artisan course at expert sausage-makers and Italian food specialists Squisito in Northampton, has been busy perfecting seasonal recipes for the award-winning farm shop.

Over the past few weeks, Ben has been tempting customers with a variety of flavours from venison and red wine sausages to his haggis ones, made to celebrate Burns’ Night.

Lamb and mint - using pedigree Cotswold lamb bred by Nolan Brook in Mickleton - will be on the menu this spring along with a traditional, year-round pork and sage version.

Pork and leek sausages - the leeks grown just four miles away from the shop by Drinkwaters of Ebrington – are available now while local leeks are still in season and pork, apple and cider sausages will be available soon. There will be pork and chilli ready for the summer barbecues.

Tom Greenstock, managing director of the firm, said: “Fillet & Bone is borne out of a butchers’ shop that’s been serving Chipping Campden for over 100 years.”

“We only sell meat from trusted Cotswold farms, produced by responsible farmers, and so we thought it was time we started creating our own sausages, properly made in the old-fashioned way from exceptional ingredients.

“Our customers love that there are no additives - just free-range meat and a secret blend of herbs. They’ve been hugely popular already.”

Ben, who has worked at Fillet & Bone since it opened, said: “I make them fresh every day with the best ingredients.

“They’re full of flavour because they’re made from pure meat with a secret blend of herbs and spices we’ve devised in the shop. It’s fantastic to be able to offer our customers traditional sausages, with no rubbish in them, that taste amazing.”

Fillet & Bone, which is in Chipping Campden High Street, sells an array of deli goods and seasonal fruit and vegetables. Many of the products have won Great Taste awards and Fillet & Bone sausages have been entered into this year’s awards scheme.

The business was a finalist in the Food Magazine Reader Awards 2018 and is a South West finalist in the Best Independent Retailer Category for the Countryside Alliance Awards 2018, known as the Rural Oscars.