What do you get when you cross a banger with a burrito?

Ben Polkinghorne says the convenience factor is a major selling point.

Inventor of the Bangerritos — burrito filling in sausage casing — sets his sights on expanding to Australia and UK.

A hunger for burritos and an eye for convenience led Ben Polkinghorne to develop the Bangerritos - burrito filling in a sausage casing.

Polkinghorne set up the Auckland Burrito Review page on Facebook in 2011, with the aim to try as many burritos around Auckland as possible to find the perfect one. Since then, he has reviewed more than 30 burrito restaurants, opened several Mexican restaurants himself and interviewed several politicians before the last local election, about burritos. He said the idea for the product was developed last year.

"In September I met a man who was passionate about sausages," Polkinghorne said. "Matt Simpkins, who is in advertising, and as a sideline he makes sausages in his kitchen at home for friends and family, he used to be a butcher so he's got some good recipes," he said.

The pair decided to do some tests.

"We thought a few things through like, rather than most sausages which are completely minced and one texture, we decided to put in whole black beans and chunks of red onion and red cabbage so that when you bite the sausage you get a texture and a crunch that's like a burrito," he said.

"Then, rather than serve it in a piece of white bread, why not serve it in a tortilla with guacamole, hot sauce and sour cream and why not call it the Bangerrito."

The Bangerrito was officially launched in December, the first weekend of summer, and in the three months since it has been rolled out at Nosh, Farro Fresh and Moore Wilson in Wellington, with 11 stores overall, as well as being part of the My Food Bag offering for a few weeks.

Polkinghorne said the feedback from My Food Bag customers was almost all positive, and growth was steady in stores, with each regularly selling between 10 and 15 packs per week.

Polkinghorne said the convenience factor was a major selling point, with the product ready-made and all the ingredients already in the sausage, rather than having to buy individual ingredients. He said this made it particularly easy for people wanting one or two burritos, rather than having to prepare all of the fillings for a small number.

"We use free range pork, which is the main ingredient and free range is pretty important to what we're doing," he said. "And then it's got black beans, red cabbage, red onion, chipotle in adobo, spices, a tiny bit of sugar, some fresh orange juice and that's pretty much it. All the ingredients are fresh, there's no preservatives, no additives. They're gluten free because there's no filler or flour or bread crumbs and people really do say it's an amazing tasting sausage, which is really positive."

Polkinghorne said he was looking at trying to extend the shelf life of the products without customers having to freeze them and losing the fresh factor.

He was developing new flavours, including chicken lightly marinated in tequila, and vegetarian. He said the company was ambitious and would be expanding to Australia in the next few months and then London, if all went well, by the end of the year.

"We need to do more research but we've got a couple of guys [in Australia] that are keen to get involved and it seems like it's a slightly different model where you pitch to a distributor and then they have 300 or so stores underneath them," he said.

"So I think if we can do a similar thing where we contract manufacture to a factory to make the sausages for us and then maybe expand into London by the end of the year."