Ça alors! Bootle boasts some of the best charcuterie in the world

Dear readers — Any charcuterie fans out there? Cured meats don’t have a long history of production here in the UK; they tend to be imported from other European countries like France and Spain. Which is why it might come as a surprise that some of the very best soppressata, prosciutto and nduja the world over is being made right here in Liverpool – in Bootle, to be precise – and it all started when Andy Rogers procured his own pig and got to work aging it in his living room.

For today’s story, Abi went to meet Andy and his wife, Dot, to learn how they levelled up from living amongst strips of meat in various states of the curing process, to opening their own business and winning some of the top prizes in the food world.

But first, your Post briefing — including a new AI hub in Merseyside and bad news for fans of Africa Oye.

Your Post briefing

Around 1,000 jobs are set to be created by a new AI hub planned for Merseyside. In an interview earlier this week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he wanted to make the UK a world leader in AI, boosting economic growth and public services as a result. IT company Kyndryl recently announced it would be building a new technology hub in the Liverpool City Region, with metro mayor Steve Rotheram saying it would be “hugely beneficial” for Merseyside. “Liverpool City Region is leading the way in the UK's AI revolution,” he added. Do you have any thoughts on what bringing AI to Liverpool could mean for our city – whether positive, negative or anywhere in between? Please get in touch: shannon@millmediaco.uk.

Bad news for fans of Africa Oye — the popular free festival in Sefton Park will not be returning this year. Festival organisers have blamed rising costs due to the festival’s increasing popularity over the years, which saw record people in attendance last year. Due to this new demand, it is estimated that the cost of health and safety event control would be around £150,000 alone. “Without major investment to cover the costs of delivering a festival of this size safely, it would be irresponsible to go ahead with the event in 2025,” Africa Oye’s artistic director Paul Duhaney said. However, he promised the festival would return bigger and better than ever in 2026, after a series of fundraisers over the next twelve months.

And it seems the battle over Liverpool’s Breastaurant may finally be over. This week, it was revealed that Beauvoir, the company behind the city’s branch of Hooters on Water Street, has gone (excuse the pun) bust, leaving its future up in the air. The restaurant has long been a point of contention in the city, with former mayor Joanne Anderson protesting against its opening in 2022. Councillor Nick Small also had a bone to pick with the restaurant in recent years, acting as a vocal critic against signs placed on Water Street to advertise the business. Jack and Mollie wrote a piece about the row over Hooters back in 2022 — read that here.

One Christmas, not too long after they met, Dot was brainstorming the perfect gift to get her partner, Andy. A pair of socks? A vintage copy of his favourite book? Nothing seemed quite right. Then the idea struck her. She hopped on a bus to her nearest butcher's, and after a few minutes of bartering, she was handed a giant see-through plastic bag, weighing around five kilos. Inside it was a pig’s head.

She recalls the looks of terror she received from passersby while she trundled back home on the bus. “They must have thought I was mad,” she laughs. But the look of pure joy on Andy’s face when he opened his gift made the journey worthwhile. For Andy, a pig’s head was full of possibilities: the brawns, stocks and soups he could make; the crispy pigs ears or cheeks he could carve!

From that moment on, Andy was head over heels for all things pig. So when Dot was offered a job teaching at an international school in the south of France in 2009, he jumped at the chance to go with her. An opportunity to live in a country famed for its pork products, fancy wines and cheeses? How could one say no?

By his own account, Andy has always struggled to hold down a “regular job”. After studying French at Leeds University, he made his way quickly through numerous office roles; he’d eventually get sacked for daydreaming, not keeping up with his workload or — as he proudly tells me — writing letters of complaint to Merseyrail on company time.

Perhaps it was this aversion to the mundanity of a nine to five that led him to where he is now. Working tirelessly alongside his now-wife Dot, Andy runs North by Sud Ouest: a small but mighty charcuterie firm operating out of a warehouse in an industrial estate in Bootle, producing some of the world’s best charcuterie.

The company, while still unknown to most in the city, has a big reputation in the food world. In its five-year lifespan, North By Sud Ouest has won more prizes than you can count: silver medals at the British Cured Meats Awards, gold at the Farm Shop and Deli Awards and, as of last year, winner of the BBC Food and Farming Awards. For his work stuffing sausages, curing meats and making confit, Andy has been dubbed a master of his craft, his creations hailed by celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall as “the best charcuterie I've tasted anywhere in the UK, and right up there with the very best I've ever tasted anywhere in the world”.

But how did Andy, Merseyside born and bred, end up working in the niche world of charcuterie? Cured meats have historically been imported into the UK from countries like France and Spain, seldom produced here on our own soil. It’s only in the last decade or so that charcuterie has begun being made in England on a larger scale. So it’s surprising – not to mention impressive – that in such little time, Andy has become a global award winner for his home-grown creations.

On a wintry day in January, I braved the snow to meet Andy and Dot in their Bootle warehouse to find out more. Greeted by a cork door with North By Sud Ouest brandished on it, the pair welcomed me in from the cold with a hot cup of tea and an extra coat. Though they’ve been based here for several years now, the warehouse still has a makeshift vibe to it. There’s cardboard boxes stacked high; hams in various states of aging dangling in fridges with tubs of meat stored underneath. Despite what to me looks a little like chaos, Andy knows where everything is. This is his way of working.

Andy pulls me up a chair and we sit down for our chat, Dot crouched down on a milkcrate with their two-year-old son sitting on her lap. The couple first met at a drumming class on Lark Lane 20 years ago. They both had been keen travellers in their youth — Andy exploring Africa while Dot spent her time in India — before returning to Liverpool and settling into working life. Andy, after having the joy sucked out of him by computers and filing cabinets, decided to pivot and become a chef, working in a small restaurant called the Left Bank on Penny Lane — an experience he recalls as a “baptism of fire”, full of late nights and near accidents. Dot, on the other hand, pursued the slightly less dangerous career of becoming a primary school teacher.

In 2009, Dot was teaching in Liverpool when she got the offer from the international school in the south of France. Within a matter of weeks, the pair had packed up their belongings into a small trailer and moved to a village near the Pyrenees. As fate would have it, a renowned charcutier named Philippe Camdeborde (the brother of French celebrity chef Yves Camdeborde) had a job for him.

In English kitchens, Andy was used to throwing away dozens of binbags worth of offcuts; working in France, “absolutely nothing went to waste,” he says — the bones, skin and flesh of every animal was used almost in its entirety. Tout est bon chez le cochon, as the French say — all of the pig is delicious.

As he learnt how to make black pudding, soppressata and nduja, Andy kept a record of his discoveries online. He started a blog, North By Sud Ouest (“It was simple: I was a northern bloke, living in the south of France — the Sud Ouest,” he explains), and he began to experiment with his own cooking. To his surprise, his peers in France were impressed by his capabilities, and he even began cheffing his own events in partnership with a local winery. “The French, you know, they’re not sure about English cooking — they think they know more about cooking,” Andy laughs. “They were like, who is this English guy with his steamed marmalade puddings? But when they tried it they were like, wow, soulage, soulage!”. (Soulage means relieved in French.)

In 2013, after four years living in France and learning from the best in the business, Andy and Dot decided it was time to bid the country adieu and move back home. They wanted children, and the prospect of free babysitting offered by their parents was too good to pass up. Settling down in Seaforth, Andy found a job working at the Baltic Bakehouse, and Dot juggled motherhood with teaching while also dabbling in her newfound passion: graphic design. But Andy’s dreams were still full of charcuterie.

So, like any normal person would, Andy bought himself a pig. (An already dead one, to be clear.) It was early 2018, and the bitter cold meant perfect conditions for aging pork. He got to work, dissembling the pig in various corners of his home to make charcuterie. By mid-February, his living room was adjourned with meat hooks and sausages swinging from the rafters.