It turns out that in order to have the best Ultimate Bacon Sandwich, you start with a bacon weave made of local PEI Pork.
PEI Porktoberfest recently wrapped up its fourth successful campaign, and once all the votes were tallied, the winner of the Best PEI Porktoberfest Chef was Craig O’Neill from Brothers 2 in Summerside.
The winning bacon sandwich, titled the ‘B2 Piggyback’, featured a smoked maplewood bacon weave, sautéed spinach, fresh mango salsa, caramelized onions, tomato, old cheddar, swiss cheese, and honey mustard mayo all on grilled homemade bread.
Created and marketed by Fresh Media, PEI Porktoberfest is a month-long celebration of the PEI Hog Industry, and is presented in partnership with the Prince Edward Island Hog Producers, PEI Department of Agriculture & Fisheries, and PEI Flavours. Other supporters included Hometown Pork and the PEI Restaurant Association.
For the first Porktoberfest campaign, the signature dish was gourmet sausages, while the previous two campaigns featured pulled pork. This was the first year for bacon sandwiches as the signature pork product. To win the title of Best Chef, consumers voted on the entries using a voting scale of originality, flavour and taste.
“It goes without saying there’s a love for bacon in the marketplace”, said Melody Dover, President of Fresh Media. “And we’re very proud that Islanders showed their love for local bacon by supporting our talented homegrown chefs at such increased numbers.”
During October, over 11,000 sandwiches were purchased, approximately a 20 percent increase from last year’s campaign. This equalled over 4,600 lbs of pork consumed, and an economic impact of $144,525 in sales of just the sandwiches alone, up over $21,000 from 2014.
“Prince Edward Island’s food sector makes an important contribution to our province through economic activity, export development and job creation. The Province of Prince Edward Island continues to work with our Island industries to grow,” said Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Alan McIsaac. “One of our goals is to increase awareness and consumption of our high quality local food products here at home and Porktoberfest is a great example of that success.”
A secondary component of the campaign was the home-chef challenge, where Islanders were encouraged to cook and share their most creative bacon sandwich featuring PEI pork. The winner was Aimee Power and Niall Stanley whose entry featured banana pepper jelly, peanut butter, pepper-mayo and local bacon. For their prize, they won Bacon For A Year compliments of Hometown Pork and KJL Select Meats. This equals a pound of PEI bacon a week, or 52 lbs over the year.
“The Hog Board is again pleased with the continued awareness that PEI Porktoberfest has generated for our local industry", said Tim Seeber, manager of the PEI Hog Marketing Board. "Thanks again to the Restaurants and Islanders who showed their support for our Island pork farmers by participating in this year’s campaign”.
For Islanders wanting to taste the Brothers 2 winning Ultimate Bacon Sandwich, it will remain on their menu for the foreseeable future.