Behind The Scenes Of Sausage Making On New Year's Day

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - New Year's Day is one of Uncle Charley's favorite holidays.

The Vandergrift sausage maker says forget the old stories about what goes into pork sausage.

"The way sausage originally began it was all the scraps and leftovers," noted Len Caric, the CEO of Uncle Charley's.

But today Uncle Charley's sausage has only two ingredients.

"Pork and seasoning is all that's in sausage," Caric told KDKA money editor Jon Delano.

Caric led a tour through his plant following FDA rules including scrubbing our shoes, and rooms kept very cold at 35 degrees.

"This is our receiving cooler."

Thousands of pounds of fresh pork come into the plant loaded into carts that get taken to a special machine to be mixed with different kinds of seasoning.

"Hot Italian and sweet Italian -- for Uncle Charley's they're our big sellers on New Year's Day," says Caric.

As the machine mixes and cuts up the pork, dried ice is added.

"The idea behind the dried ice is to keep the product cold."

Now the sausage mix is ready to be pumped into a casing, which is made from the animal's intestines.

Delano: "We're really eating intestines when we eat sausage?"

Caric: "Yes, but it's all natural. It's part of the animal, and it does go through a thorough cleaning process."

Fresh sausage emerges on the conveyor belt ready to be packed for consumers.

Delano tried to help.

Delano: "This is harder than it looks, a little bit like 'I Love Lucy.'

Turns out quality control was not happy.

"You were squeezing them a little too hard so we kind of got your fingerprints, divvy marks, in them," the inspector noted.

But plenty of fresh sausage made it through just fine for your New Year's Day meal -- or the Steelers play-off!

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