Popular Fair Food Exposed: It’s Actually Dog Meat!

Throughout the year, the French enjoy a type of deli meat that’s easy to snack on and found at every market: dry sausage. Traditionally made from pork, it comes in original and flavored varieties, including options like walnut, porcini mushroom, or Roquefort cheese. At trade fairs, this product takes center stage at every booth! However, the TV show “Scams!” on M6 has exposed some questionable practices. Armed with labels, appellations, and persuasive pitches, vendors effectively deceive us.

At the Lyon fair, one vendor quickly stands out with his well-stocked booth. On hidden camera, he praises the virtues of his sausage, claiming it is homemade and local, supposedly made from ham hocks in Catalonia, just a few kilometers from where it is cured. But when tasted by Emmanuel Rubin, a food critic, the sausage is described as tasting like something from a gas station, with “no flavor, very little meat, and too much salt.” Rubin harshly concludes: “This or going to the supermarket, it’s the same! You’ve been sold the illusion of local charm with a well-rehearsed spiel… It’s pointless!” The reason? The so-called artisan is actually just a retailer who buys his products from a wholesaler and then sells them at inflated prices at fairs. A sausage purchased for 2.90 euros is resold for 6 euros, creating a “record gross margin of over 50%”, the journalists reveal.

So, where do the sausages sold at fairs really come from? To find out, the journalists reach out to one of the manufacturers. Far from being a small craftsman, he actually runs a factory spanning 5000 m². The meat he uses comes from various European countries (Brittany, Germany, or Belgium) and only reaches Spain at the time of curing! Invited to taste it, Arnaud and Sabine Merlet, a couple who were named champions of French dry sausage in 2024, do not mince their words. “It’s dog meat, it’s disgusting to sell this to humans, I find it scandalous!”, exclaims Arnaud, shocked by the poor quality of the product. “We shouldn’t be selling this,” adds Sabine. “Our sausage is much cheaper than the one at the fair,” her partner notes.

On the packaging, you can find odd ingredients like lactose and milk proteins, added to increase the product’s weight, as well as additives. Meanwhile, consumers describe the product as “moldy, limp, foul-smelling, fit for the trash.” Clearly, at such prices, it’s better to head straight to your local butcher.