As a cornerstone event for the Elberta community, the Elberta German Sausage Festival is held twice a year (always the last Saturdays of March and October) to raise funds for the Town of Elberta Volunteer Fire Department. In addition to directly supporting the fire department, festival proceeds also benefit the community through benevolent initiatives and other fundraising activities. The festival further extends its impact by offering local non-profits a valuable opportunity to participate and raise money for their own causes. Proceeds are also used to ensure the festival's continued operation and improvement.
The Elberta German Sausage Festival began in 1978 as a town fundraiser, spearheaded by the Elberta Volunteer Fire Department. Although the recipe has changed somewhat over the years, the original secret recipe for Elberta's famous sausage is credited to Alfred Stucki who managed Elberta's Locker Plant from 1953 until his death in 1973.
Our recipe is a proprietary recipe owned by Elberta Volunteer Fire Department, Inc. Farm Fresh Meats in Robertsdale, AL has been producing the sausage for our event since 1976. While our recipe is a secret, the basis for it is quite simple - premium cuts of boneless pork shoulder and beef chuck, as well as various old-world spices. That's it! We also use all-natural casings for our sausage. One ingredient you will not find in our sausage are any preservatives. Our sausage is packed and bagged 2 days before each festival, so it is always fresh and never frozen!
For each festival, we grill approximately 6,500 lbs of our Elberta German Sausage on a 30 ft. long grill. The sausages are loaded into racks which allows us to flip and move a large amount of sausages at one time. They slowly make their way down the grill to the unloading area, where they are transferred to containers that are taken inside of our serving building. There, the sausages are put into buns and wrapped, then taken to serving windows to be enjoyed by our patrons!
The festival also features nearly 200 arts and crafts vendor booth spaces, as well as various non-profit organization booth spaces. If you're not a fan of sausage, that's okay - we have numerous food vendors in attendance that sell items such as roasted corn, typical carnival fare, BBQ, kettle corn, and various other dishes. We also have a bounce house area for the kids! Proceeds from the bounce house area are donated to the Elberta Police Department Reserve Program.