More than 15 hundred sausage makers have gathered in China to compete for the first prize. And it was a Russian product that took top honours. Russian sausage used to be very popular in China because of Russian immigrants, but its popularity declined. Now

The ingredients for the best tasting Russian sausage are kept secret, because the Chinese had to shell out a lot of cash to acquire the know-how from Russian immigrants in Australia.

“At first they did not want to sell the family recipes. But we convinced them that it is not just sausage we are talking about here, but cultural tradition,” said Van Ling, a Chinese technologist.

With the workers kitted out in uniforms, the sausage production line in China looks more like a top-security research centre. They hold special sausage-making classes at the plant.

It seems that even the government takes it seriously.

“Since there is practically no Russian immigration in China nowadays, the recipe of the product can be considered close to that of federal importance,” stressed Tzhang Singhe, a state official.