Costco Is Now Selling Sausages From A 500 Year Old Supplier

If you’ve ever felt that your next bulk grocery run could use a little British history, you’re in luck.

Videos by Sporked

Costco is now selling British-style bangers from RJ Balson & Son, a family-run butcher that has been making sausages since 1515. Yes, 1515. That means the company has been making sausages for more than 500 years, through 26 generations of the same family.

And now, its bangers are sitting in Costco warehouses.

I can’t say I expected a five-century-old British butcher to end up on my Costco shopping list, but here we are.

These Sausages Have Been Around For a While

RJ Balson & Son is England’s oldest family business and its history goes back to the reign of Henry VIII. The Balson family has been butchering and making sausages in Dorset for more than five centuries, passing the business down through 26 generations.

So while most of us are struggling to keep a sourdough starter alive for more than a month, the Balson family has kept a sausage business going since the 16th century.

The British-style bangers now available at Costco are fully cooked pork sausages made using the family recipe, seasoned with a blend of mace, pepper, and ginger and rounded out with a touch of honey. They’re also free of nitrates, artificial ingredients, and MSG.

Costco Is Selling 70 At A Time

Naturally, Costco isn’t exactly known for doing anything on a small scale.

The RJ Balson & Son British-style bangers come in 14 packs of five. That’s 70 sausages, 12.25 pounds total, for $159.99. They’re fully cooked, so all you have to do is heat them up before serving.

That makes them a fairly convenient option if you’re feeding a crowd, planning a particularly sausage-heavy weekend, or simply have the Costco mentality of “I’ll buy it now and figure out where it goes later.”

There’s also something kind of funny about taking a product with a 500-year history and putting it in a 70-count freezer haul at Costco. Somewhere, somehow, the Balson family went from making sausages in 1515 to having their bangers stacked next to the industrial-size tubs of mayonnaise.

History moves fast.

What Exactly Is A British Banger?

If you’re more familiar with American breakfast sausage, British bangers are a little different. They’re generally made with pork and have a smoother, more finely ground texture, with seasoning that tends to be mild and savory rather than aggressively spiced.

They’re traditionally served as part of a full English breakfast, alongside eggs, bacon, baked beans, toast, tomatoes, and mushrooms.

You don’t have to build an entire English breakfast every time you eat one, though. These can also be grilled, pan-fried, or served with mashed potatoes and gravy for the very British combination known as bangers and mash.

Which sounds like a pretty good excuse to buy 70 sausages.

A 500-Year-Old Business Meets Costco

The most surprising thing about this Costco find isn’t necessarily that British sausages exist. It’s that a company with more than five centuries of family history is now selling its bangers at one of America’s biggest retailers.

RJ Balson & Son has survived 26 generations, countless changes in food trends, and several centuries of history. Now, its latest chapter involves selling a giant pack of sausages to Costco shoppers.

I can’t imagine what the Balson family would have predicted back in 1515, but I’m guessing Costco wasn’t on the list.