A FESTIVAL of Sausages is being held at Country Harvest, near Ingleton, in early May.

Free sausage tastings, fun competitions and demonstrations are being planned along with a charity event to see how many sausages can be eaten in 60 seconds.

The festival, the first one held at the Food Hall/Coffee Shop on the A65, will also feature award-winning Young Butcher of the Year George Taylor’s spicy sausage challenge.

“The range of sausages our butchery team make every day are some of our bestsellers so what better festival to have," said Mike Clark, owner of Country Harvest. "Who doesn’t like a good old British banger! This will be a real celebration of the fantastic sausages we make here and we want our customers to get really involved with the various competitions we are planning.”

As part of the Festival the Food Hall is asking for people to come up with their favourite, unusual flavours of sausage. The winning sausage flavour will then be created by the butchery team and put on sale in store.

Ideas for unusual flavours of sausage – the winner will receive a sausage-related prize – and anyone interested in taking part in the challenges should be emailed to suecountryharvest@gmail.com or send them to Sausage Competition, Country Harvest, A65, Ingleton, LA6 3PE.

“We’ve won lots of awards for our sausages and now we want to create something really different so we are asking our Country Harvest customers for suggestions – the more eccentric the better!" said Mr Taylor, whose thick pork and thin pork sausages have won national awards. "I’m really looking forward to having a go at creating them - should be a lot of fun!”

The Festival of Sausages runs from Thursday, May 4 to Saturday, May 6. There will also be fundraising for Country Harvest’s nominated charity, the North West Air Ambulance.

More details and updates on www.country-harvest.co.uk and on Facebook and Twitter.

L There will also be a special prize for the best picture posted on Facebook and Twitter of a meal used creating George’s sausages.