Tuesday 16 June 2015

Insane Idea, Pork Scratchings, Church and a Pub!

Insane Idea, Pork Scratchings, Church and a Pub!

So how do these all link together?

Background: A few months ago I had the idea for the Mens Group at Tabernacle Baptist Church Wolverhampton (TAB) (www.tabbaptistchurch.org.uk) to have a Pork Scratchings tasting evening. Just a simple bit of fun, 9 packets of pork scratchings we purchased. A score card which graded them on 5 different categories and scoring them 1-5 for each. Adding up the scores for each packet and finding an overall winner.
So I tweeted the results and the next turn of events can only be explained as a huge working from God.

So here we are... I had 3 companies get in contact with me in relation to the tweet I put out there and ask me questions. So I explained what I had arranged and that I was thinking of taking it out of the church building and into a pub!! YES Christians in a PUB!! (It is where we meet once a month as well for #prayerspsalmsandpints anyway.
So the 3 companies (Freshers Foods, Alf Turners Butchers and Black Country Snacks) all camer back to me and said if I was going to do it then tell them closer to the date of the event and they will provide some samples.!!

Next obstacle was to approach the pub, to be honest I thought this would be my biggest brick wall, but when I spoke to the owner of The Summer House Pub in Wolverhampton (Newhampton Road) she was excited for it to happen and welcomed it with open arms! Blown away.. The staff I had spoken to to arrange it and on the night were so helpful.. Really great customer service!

I spoke to one of the members of TAB  to design a poster to advertise this on church and the pub. Amazing poster!! really fun and above what I could have ever thought!! Thanks Steve!!

I was blessed to have a total of 19 different products turn up from the 3 companies.. One of them being a line that was NOT released onto the market yet!!

So last night!! Monday 15th June 2015 8pm I set it all out, 19 bowls, blind taste test, just a number in front of the bowl and a score sheet. The scoring was done over 5 categories.. Appearance, Smell, Taste, Crunch and Spicy.. Giving them a score from 1-5 (1 being poor and 5 being good).
Everyone was given a score sheet and allowed to wander around the tables.. We took over half of the side of the pub.. Normally it would have been full of noise with people talking and stuff but you could have heard a pin drop.. The look of intense on peoples faces trying to work out how they felt about it,changing scores based on others they had tried earlier, being lost over 19 different varieties..

I took away all the packets so peoples scores were not affected by the packaging as we tend to judge on
first impressions rather than what's on the inside.1 Samuel 16:7  

We had a nice turn out of 20 people as I chose a quite day at the pub to also look at bringing more people in on this day to benefit the pub rather than use a full pub and be no benefit.

I spend a good 30 minutes totalling up the scores that evening to give a "premlim winner" and announced I would confirm the results when I have checked them all the next day. Thanks goes to my wife for helping me that evening when I got home around 11pm and was checking my maths!!

Alf Turners Butchers provided: their new Dragons Fury and Traditional Pork Scratchings.
Black Country Snacks provided: MSG Gluten Free,  Double cooked porkies, BBQ pulled pork, Traditional P/Scratchings, Q Pork Crackling (Pork Idle Winner), Sams Pork Scratching, Big Bag (plain), Big Bag (Salt n Vinegar)
Freshers Foods provided: Openshaws Big Bag Traditional, Pub Original Pork Crunch, Pub Original Pork Crunch Hellishly Hot, Pub Original Pork Scratchings, Pub Original (Small White bag), Openshaws Finest Pork Crackling, Openshaws Cumberland Sausage, Openshaws Pulled Pork, Openshaws Black Pudding

So after totalling up all the scores and rechecking them we had an overall winner...

1st Place: Alf Turners - Pork Scratchings - 228 points
2nd Place: Openshaws - Big Bag Traditional - 223 points 
3rd Place: Alf Turners - Dragons Fury - 222 points 
Tied 4th Place - Q Pork Crackling AND Sams Pork Scratching - 217 points!

So a big thanks goes to all 3 of the companies above AND The Summer House Pub for enabling this all to be possible and a fun night had by all..

Praise also goes to God for giving me the insane idea to push it out into the social media world and keep going!!

So when you are next in a pub OR supermarket (possibly) ask them for a packet.. try them and see how you like them. But remember... do NOT judge them by the packet.