Food News, with Deborah Yewdall

BUTCHER Alan Coar has gone wild with his latest sausages.

He is the first butcher in the area to sell bangers, as well as steaks and other products, made from locally-reared wild boar.

And while the decision to experiment with exotic meat was made in an attempt to help combat the effect of the BSE crisis, Alan is enjoying experimenting with the new meat.

"Like all butchers, I have seen sales fall after the BSE crisis and I wanted to experiment with something exotic," he said.

"I thought about things like ostrich and kangaroo meat but they didn't appeal to me so I decided on wild boar. "The sheer size of the wild boar means it is very different from a conventional pig," he said.

"They are about 100lbs heavier than domesticated pigs so it takes two of us to deal with one.

"This experiment has also given me the chance to come up with some new ideas for products, like the wild boar, cider and apple sausages."

Alan, whose family have run Coar's butchers in East Park Road, Blackburn, for almost 100 years, is using wild boar reared at Eddie Coupe's farm in Samlesbury, which was featured in Food News earlier this year.

Alan said: "I did worry about how the customers would react. I thought they might have an image of a big hairy wild boar and be put off from eating it.

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