Ever wonder how the sausage gets made here at the Final Assembly smokehouse?
We start with fresh and cured industry buzz, add some cheap starch filler, toss in a bit of spice, try for a respectable lean-to-fat ratio, stuff it into the little casings you see on this page and serve them up hot out of the back of this vehicle every Monday morning.
Anyway, last week the meatiest news making the rounds was that Volkswagen's in-house currywurst-making operation was celebrating its 45th anniversary. Hey, who knew VW had a currywurst-making operation? So we got out the mixers and grinders.
Turns out the sausages are a staple of VW's factory cafeterias, but they're also sold in grocery stores under the brand "Volkswagen Originalteil," which means "original parts" in German.
"Dealers in Germany often give five-packs of them to customers as gifts," the company said.
Volkswagen made 6.8 million currywursts in 2017, which every news outlet pointed out was more than the number of vehicles the VW brand sold worldwide last year.
About 30 workers at VW's flagship plant in Wolfsburg turn out the stuff. Three times a week, the plant takes a load of pork from nearby farms and grinds choice cuts into a precise mix.
Don't ask — the recipe is a secret. But VW says there's no cheating.
"Our currywurst has a fat content of only 20 percent," said head butcher Franco Lo Presti. "Normally, it's around 35 percent."