Henry Hoggs – The British Style Sausages Spaniards Love

Simon and Nestor have wowed the country with their vision and innovative business that makes the best British style sausages in Spain.

We talk to the founders of Henry Hoggs to find out more.

About Simon

Simon is a second-generation skilled butcher (Smithfield College, London) whose passion for sausages, knowledge of all things meat and love for cooking is only equivalent to his joy for his life here in Spain with his family. Having owned a traditional family butchers in Devon for over 40 years, Simon and his father Derrick´s reputation for fresh quality and local sausages was excellent.

Loyal customers came back time and again from as far away as London, for Wilkinsons´ Sausages. Receiving and acting-on constant customer feedback inspired and motivated Simon to always deliver the best possible product to customers and to go above and beyond when offering a food service.

Having been in Spain for more than 7 years now with his wife and daughter, it was that cry for and desire for an authentic British type of sausage and excellent service that told Simon customers needed him again.

A lot of people say they have a passion for food. In the main this refers to the eating of it.

Brought up around the family butchery business form the age of 4, made my first sausages at the age of eight continued after school at weekends and during the holidays for my father and then at 16 left our sleepy Devon village and headed for the bright lights of London to study at Smithfield College.

Returned to Devon to find trainee management positions in the meat industry fancying a change I joined the motor trade where I enjoyed over 10 happy (but stressful years) another job in the meat industry (during this time I met my future wife Susan) After some time we decided to buy my family’s business.

We were well known in the area for our quality meats and our sausages. We sold the business in 2012.

What brought you to Spain?

We originally came to Spain in 2013 when the company my wife was working for asked her to come and help open the Madrid office. It had always been our plan at some stage to move to Spain but this offer accelerated our plans. We live in a small village just outside ofNorth Madrid. I decided to train as an English teacher and found work with an academy with my first assignment being at Banco de España, I was there for over three years.

About Nestor

If you want someone from Spain to understand your passion for good, artisan food – go find a Basque, especially when that persons´ family have owned pig farms are involved with Matanza. Nestor is the father of 2 young boys whose immediate reaction to fresh British pork sausages was to set-up a sausage company with Simon.

When Nestor took English lessons from Simon, he got a lot more than he bargained for. “Everyone needs to try these.” Nestor´s background in project management makes him the perfect navigator of this culinary odyssey (and chief sausage tester!) Nestor connects Henry Hoggs to Spain ensuring the synergy of traditional English butchery and Spanish culture. Henry Hoggs sausages are an amazing food, especially with a cold caña.

What inspired Henry Hoggs?

The words “I really miss our sausages” were the catalyst for Henry Hoggs, we had a conversation one evening, after which a few boxes arrived containing equipment and we made our first sausages for us (and our close friends, who have been a source of great support)

How do they differentiate from what we buy in Mercadona and other supermarkets

Sausages historically were somewhere to put the parts of the pig that weren’t easily sold, but that’s not how we do it…

The sausages we produce are to English recipes, using natural skins most of which have been used by my family for many years and are tried and tested.

We try where possible to use Duroc pork, a breed of some 200 years old that has been bred for its amazing flavour, which we source locally to Madrid, using the back legs for our gammons, loins for our bacon and shoulder and belly for the sausages. We know that you will “taste the difference” in our products. Our Bacon & gammon are dry cured in the traditional way i.e. rubbed with salt and not injected with lots of salty water like mass produced products. This shows not only during the cooking process but also in the depth of flavour you get, enjoying every mouthful.

We go to great lengths to make our sausages and bacon taste like they should as well as having no bits of bone and gristle as found so often in other brands. Basically we wanted to produce a sausage that we could feed to our children and enjoy ourselves.

With regards to the nutritional values for example The Criollo Fresco from a leading supermarket has 326kcal, and 30g fat per 100g, whereas Henry Hoggs Honeyroast Sausages 208kcal and 15.5g fat per 100g

What ingreditents do you use?

We still source the majority of our dry ingredients from the UK as I believe we have to stay true to the original recipes and concept

How do Spaniards react when they try them?

Interestingly we set up the business with our target market being the “ex pat” community, of which the majority still is but we do see an increasing number of spaniards joining us and when they understand how to cook them they’re back time and time again

Thanks you Simon and Nestor.

To celebrate the New Year Henry Hoggs are offering a free pack of Honeyroast sausages worth over 5€ with every order over 30€

 To place your order HENRY HOGGS READER OFFER  Use Voucher code MADMET during checkout

Offer valid until 31st Jan 2021