Sausage Queen Chrissy Flanagan Is Mistress Of The Meat You Have To Eat At Meatstock

Sydney-based Chrissy Flanagan is the wearer of many hats: the unassuming face of inner-city gentrification, an ex-vegetarian purveyor of fine meats, proud corporate escapee, and the first woman to place in the highly contested (and very serious) national Sausage King competition. She's also got a wicked sense of humour and is well versed in the cheeky innuendo that comes with making sausages.

"I'm not a butcher by trade, but I'm pretty sure there's only one woman butcher in Sydney," Flanagan says from her soon-to-be store (aptly named The Sausage Factory) in Dulwich Hill.

"So I'm basically known by most people as that meat woman."

From tweeting the #ElectionSausage hashtag to devouring $3 snags at Bunnings on the weekend, there's no denying the humble snag's place as a sizzling cornerstone of Australian culture. Now, Flanagan wants to cut out the off-cuts and introduce quality sausages, made with free-range meats, to the Aussie masses.

"I make the sausages that you cannot be revolted by."

"People don't really see the art of sausages, because they're generally made with dirty meat," Flanagan tells me. "Butchers get whatever has not sold, they put it in a bucket and at the end of the week they tip it into a mincer with a big bag of preservatives and that becomes a sausage.

"I make the sausages that you cannot be revolted by," she laughs. "I think what I'm doing is pretty controversial. People were telling me I couldn't put a pork shoulder in a sausage - but I think there's definitely a market there."

Ahead of her stint at this year's annual Meatstock Festival, Flanagan credits the strong local arts scene and festival circuit for expanding in recent years to include artisan foods.

"I think it's a cultural thing, if I was not at Meatstock selling sausages I'd probably be at Meatstock eating sausages," she says. "I think food underpins a lot of Australian culture, particularly along the east coast. We did Sydney Festival, and that was huge. Arts festivals are increasingly becoming as much about food as they are about art. Food is such a huge part of people's lives."

Still, Flanagan admits there's a generational gap when it comes to consumers being willing to front up more money for quality sausages, laughing as she recalls the time a number of elderly Greek men scoffed at her $12.50 price tag at the Marrickville markets in Sydney.

"Young people are obsessed with food," she says. "It really is such a generational thing, you only have to look at Instagram to see that everyone under the age of 30 has a food blog."

Despite lower disposable incomes and skyrocketing rental prices, Flanagan believes millennials are more inclined than ever to invest in free-range, locally sourced produce. "I think quality food is the first stop for a lot of young people - and with a new breed of artisanal food makers making their mark, it's becoming increasingly accessible," she tells me.

While Flanagan's rapidly growing business has stirred up some controversy in the traditionally male-dominated meat industry, she's found that her and her gourmet snags are more often met with amusement and curiosity than resentment by those who have proceeded her. "They definitely think I'm crazy, but most people have been really lovely," she insists. "I think they get a giggle out of me signing off on my emails with 'The Sausage Queen'."

Having started out selling her snags at local markets and breweries, the businesswoman soon realised one undeniable truth: "Drunk people love eating sausages." This epiphany would soon become the blueprint for her first store, The Sausage Factory, which sees Flanagan team up with local St Peters brewery Willie The Boatman to present a Sausage Queen beer.

"The beer will be somewhere between a complex pale ale and an accessible IPA," she says. "A mid-range beer for people who want to look like they know something about beer."

And what can punters expect when her first store opens in mid-to-late May?

"Off the hook sausages - the sausages will always be the centrepiece because they're my babies," Flanagan says. "But we're rounding them out with fresh salads, intensely good breads and butters, and strong focus on other local producers." Sounds like it's sizzle time to us.