CLEAVER Salumi Cabinets is proud to partner with Viva Leichhardt and The Norton Street Italian Festa for own Sydney’s Italian amateur salami competition.
The 2025 Italian Festa Salami Competition will be a search for Sydney’s finest maker of Italian-style salami.
Represent your heritage and earn the bragging rights your salami deserves.
We’ll be crowning Best Northern Italian Style, Best Southern Italian Style and, of course, Grand Champion Salami complete with trophies and cash prizes.
Entries close Sunday 19th October with the winners announced on Sunday 26th October at the 2025 Norton Street Italian Festa.
The Italian Festa Salami competition is looking for the finest Italian-style salami makers in both Northern and Southern styles.
Non-Italian styles or salami made from other than pork meat cannot be entered into this competition.
Northern Italian Style:
Traditionally made with the use of the following ingredients, pork and a blend of spices including pepper, cinnamon, cumin, and nutmeg as well as the use of garlic. Most Northern Style salami is made in casings ranging in diameter 50-60mm. Salami made with paprika or capsicum paste are not permitted in this class.
Southern Italian Style:
It can consist of the following ingredients: pork, chilli, paprika and/or pepper paste; and/or fennel seeds as flavouring. Size can range from cacciatore 40mm, salami 50mm or soppressa 80mm.
Definition of Salami Classes/Styles:
2025 Italian Festa Salami Competition Results
Thank you to all the entrants of this year’s Italian Festa Salami Competition!
Our judging panel would like to acknowledge the overall quality of all your salami. We would like to congratulate the winners and encourage you to continue to work on improving your salami in preparation for next year’s competition.
General feedback is we’d love to see more of you attempt to make some Northern Italian styles (no capsicum/paprika, with more emphasis on the meat and pepper/garlic/fennel etc); and encourage to work on the binding* of your Southern Italian styles to prevent crumbling of the salami when sliced.
In judging salami for a competition like this, the judges are looking for salami standout in flavour, texture and balance as well as demonstrate refined production techniques. While you may not have won an award, it does not mean your salami is not enjoyable.
*Some tips for binding: 1. do your mixing with just meat and salt first, then add spices and flavours. | 2. Be careful not to add too much dry powders, like paprika, without balancing with some liquid, eg. wine.
2025 Category Winners
Best Northern Style Salami
Winner: Bullanoo Short Goods; “Blonde”
Gold Medals:
Glenn Torta; “110% P&F’
Bullanoo Short Goods; “Rossioco”
Best Southern Style Salami
Winner: Glenn Torta; “110% Chilli”
Gold Medals:
Jason Raso; “Calabresi Salami’
Rocky Simonetta; “Fennel Punch”
Giovanni Castiglione: “La Sila Salami”
Grand Champion
Winner: Glenn Torta; “110% Chilli”
Medals:
All salami scored out of 20 points.
No Medal (less than 13 points): Domestic style salami with some technique deficiencies
Bronze (13 to 15 points): Nicely made domestic style salami
Silver (15 to 17 points): Well made salami with balance and flavour.
Gold (17+ points): Very well made salami with great balance and flavour, demonstrating very high levels of technique.
Scores
Northern Style Salami:
A small group (love to see more people making these styles), but well made salami. The best demonstrated a keen eye to meat selection with quality techniques and very good binding. .
Southern Style Salami:
A popular group of salami. All were tasty, but the best showed well refined technique and balance. Many still struggled with binding and crumbling/dryness. The judges recommend binding the meat well with salt only, before adding spices, capsicum paste and/or wine etc, and also recommended restraint with dry, powdered spices unless combined with liquid, like wine.
