With his tenth entry, Koos van Dyk (55) from Polokwane managed to win the sought after 2014 Boerewors Champion title and drove away with a brand new Toyota Hilux 2.7 Double Cab Raised Body Raider!
He also received a R2500 holiday voucher from All Gold, a R2000 Coca-Cola cash prize and R750 worth of Simba vouchers.
Ten of the best South African boerewors-makers faced each other whilst aiming to impress a judging panel of food experts in the 2014 Shoprite Checkers Championship Boerewors grand finale, held at Sun City’s Valley of Waves on 4 October.
The competition has proven to be as popular as ever, with more than a thousand of the country’s best boerewors-makers battling it out for the ten best recipes to be selected to compete in Sun City.
It was a gruelling five months with three elimination rounds and some 55 000 pieces of boerewors being tasted by 400 judges.
Koos is a regional meat market manager and said that he has tweaked his recipe over the years and finally got it perfectly balanced. Koos, who was also a finalist in 2012, was confident that this year was his lucky year and is ecstatic to be the owner of the new Toyota Hilux.
The runner-up and second runner-up also did not leave empty handed. Second place was awarded to Thlokes Nkomo from Rustenburg in the North West, who won a R10 000 holiday voucher from All Gold, a R5000 Coca-Cola cash prize and R1500 worth of Simba vouchers.
Home executive, Chantél Gouws from Vereeniging in Gauteng, took third place and received a R5000 holiday voucher from All Gold, a R3000 Coca-Cola cash prize and R1000 worth of Simba vouchers.
This truly South African event is presented by Shoprite and Checkers annually to allow all aspiring boerewors-makers to show their flair for producing the tastiest traditional boerewors in the country.
This national competition, now in its twenty-second year, also helps the supermarket group to find a traditional boerewors recipe that will appeal to ever changing tastes of the majority of consumers in the country, and enables Shoprite Checkers to produce a quality product that reflects the value on offer in the meat market departments of all its supermarkets and hyper stores.
To add to this year’s excitement, the finalists will be donating a year’s supply of Championship Boerewors to a school of their choice – in total over 2850kg of boerewors will be donated.
Koos chose Pietersburg High School to receive a 1000kg Championship Boerewors donation, Thlokes chose Primrose High School in Germiston to receive 500kg of Championship Boerewors and Chantél chose College Park Primary School in Vanderbijlpark to receive 300kg of Championship Boerewors.
Each of the other seven contestants will be donating 150kg of boerewors to a school of their choice. All these schools can use the boerewors donations for their own fundraising campaigns.
An independent judging panel comprising of top food experts had the daunting task of selecting this year’s number one boerewors.
They were Martin Kobald, Carmen Niehaus, Arnold Tanzer, Francois Ferreira, Jenny Morris and Thuli Gogela.
They all agreed that singling out one winner was an extremely challenging task this year due to the unique and outstanding qualities of the finalists’ entries. Entries were initially judged in raw form, followed by a braai-off, during which contestants had to prepare their own boerewors to the best of their abilities.
The other seven finalists who competed for the title and the grand prize were: Bheki Tshezi from Mthatha, Abraham Smith from Cape Town, Gloria Sekuketse from Kimberley, Hennie Botha from Bloemfontein, Tristan Lucke from Durban, Andries Gama from Nelspruit and Gerrie Gouws from Meyerton.
Brümilda van Rensburg and Pedro Krugerwere comperes for the day and entertained the crowds on the beach. They were joined on stage by some of South Africa’s most talented entertainers, including Adam Tas, Heinz Winkler, Andriëtte Norman, Adam and Emo Adams.