Ben created the Auckland Burrito Review (ABR) in 2011. A weekly radio segment and lunch with Jacinda Adern quickly followed.
Then, after a chance encounter, he started a company making sausages which taste like burritos. It turns out sausages have no rules. So by putting free-range pork, whole black beans, diced red onion and so forth in a sausage skin, you can replicate the taste and consistency of a burrito. Served in a tortilla with guacamole, hot sauce and sour cream, the Bangerrito was an instant hit.
Stocked in gourmet supermarkets around New Zealand, Bangerritos won Gold at the prestigious NZ Sausage Awards (2017). However, acceptance into the largest supermarket group in NZ - originally the dream - forced Ben to really look at Bangerritos as a business. To get things up and running at the mainstream level he’d dreamed of would require a not-insignificant amount of money. Poor returns, the result of refusing to sacrifice quality, made the investment hard to justify. Ultimately, there were better uses of time and money and the plug was pulled in 2018.
The NZ Herald covered the inception fairly well here. And a certain social media scandal here. This is a video of Ben pitching the idea in a competition which he won. There’s a selection of interviews here, here and here.