Sun Oct 13 12:22:00 UTC 2002
South Africa’s Boerewors Champion for 2002 was announced at a thrilling grand finale at Sun City’s Valley of Waves on Saturday, 7 September. This truly South African event is annually presented by Shoprite Checkers to provide aspiring Boerewors makers with the opportunity to show their flair for producing the tastiest Boerewors in the country. In this way, the supermarket group ensures that the winning recipe is truly the country’s top Boerewors.
An ecstatic Dawie van der Merwe, from Brits, was crowned as the new Championship Boerewors king. Dawie won the title with the recipe of his friend and partner, Johan Saaiman, who developed this particular Boerewors from an old family recipe. At the crowning Dawie immediately called a stunned Johan to the stage and handed him the keys to the brand-new Toyota Hilux Raider 2700i double cab 4x4.
The second place went to Dominique Quinn, meat market manager from Shoprite Ceres, with Fred Beck, a consumer from Springs in the third place. Three revolutionary gas braais, manufactured and sponsored by “Multibraai,” were also awarded to the first three places.
Consumers will not have to wait too long to taste the supermarket group’s Championship Boerewors for 2002 as this quality product will be available in the meat market departments of all Shoprite, Checkers and Checkers Hyper stores as from next Monday, 16 September.
An independent judging panel comprised celebrities Bill Flynn, Shaleen Surtie-Richards, and Archie Masebe from Toyota SA who represented the consumer taste. Carmen Niehaus, food editor at Huisgenoot and You, Kevin Gibbs, member of the SA Chefs Association Guild and The Star’s current Angela Day, Hilary Biller, were the food experts. The judges all agreed that singling out one winner was an extremely difficult task, as the recipes entered for this year’s Championship Boerewors competition was of outstanding quality. The product was initially judged in its raw form, followed by a braai-off during which contestants had to prepare their own secret recipe Boerewors to the best of their abilities.
Actress Brumilda van Rensburg and comedian/TV show presenter Soli Philander were the compéres for the day and entertained the crowd on the beach with their wit and cracks. Other celebrities included co-presenter of Big Brother 2002 Zuraida Jardine, singers Lochner de Kock, Richard van der Westhuizen and Arno Carstens, M-Net presenters Candice Hillebrand, Ashley Hayden and Gerry Rantseli, former SA cricketer Fanie de Villiers, Olympic and Davis Cup tennis player John-Laffnie de Jager, Esmerelda Bihl, co-presenter of “Geraas” and Fiesta presenter on kykNET – Franci Swanepoel.
More than 1 450 entrants went through two rounds of elimination before the moment of truth arrived when 5 Shoprite Checkers consumers came up against 6 of the supermarket group’s meat market employees in the national finals.
The other 8 finalists who competed for the title and the grand prize were: Joubert le Roux, meat market manager from Checkers Glenvista in Roodepoort, Belinda Nel, a consumer from Graaff-Reinet, Billy Moodley, meat market manager from Checkers St Johns in Durban, June Steele, meat market manager at Shoprite Louis Trichardt, Nico Booysen, a consumer from Kriel, Margaret van Wyk, meat market assistant from Shoprite Bloemfontein, Nico de Jager, a consumer from Kathu and Kevin Holloway, meat market manager from Shoprite Atlantis near Cape Town.