Meet the Toronto sausage business quietly supplying some of the city's hottest restaurants | Daily Hive

An under-the-radar sausage business run by a Toronto chef is making waves at some of the city’s most buzzy new restaurants.

Ever find yourself sitting at a restaurant, wondering how the sausage gets made? Not in a metaphorical way, but literally, how the sausage you’re currently eating was actually made? Moreover, who made it?

Maybe that’s a niche experience that only we’ve had, but we think that sausages and the people who make them deserve more respect. After all, it’s a messy business, but someone’s got to do it, for the greater good of pizzas, sandwiches and barbecues everywhere.

One such sausage-maker is Ferdi’s Foods, which, despite only having come into existence in early 2025, is already making a splash on Toronto’s food scene, supplying sausages to a selection of noteworthy restaurants in the city.

Ferdi’s quick success (which is only growing, might we add) is largely, if not exclusively, due to its founder, Theo, who, before starting the sausage business, put in his 10,000 hours at significant Toronto restaurants like Momofuku, Mattachioni, and Buca.

It wasn’t until he left his job in December of 2024 that he got involved in the sausage business.

“I guess it finally became time to try and do something for myself,” Theo tells Dished Toronto, “so I decided to do something that I could kind of do, you know, powered by myself, without much investment. And I’ve kind of had this thing that I’ve noticed that it’s really hard to find a good sausage.”

Theo was born and raised in the U.K. and later attended culinary school in London, where sausage culture is well-rounded and duly respected. In Toronto, however, less so.

“I decided to start making my own sausages, mostly so I could eat them, and then I figured I could probably try and sell them as well,” Theo says. Thus, Ferdi’s Foods was born.

He began hosting pop-ups at various bars and restaurants around the city, like La Piscina and The 222, with griddled sausages, cheeseburgers and sandwiches, on top of supplying restaurants across the city.

Theo says Gram’s Pizza in the Junction, where Ferdi’s just so happens to operate, was the first business in the city to begin sourcing his products for its own business, but Gram’s is far from the last.

In fact, over the past several months, Ferdi’s has been slowly but surely embedding itself behind the scenes at local restaurants, including a few that have garnered significant buzz of their own as of late.

Over at Sal’s Pasta & Chops, the latest venture by Michael Sangregorio and Fabio Bondi (Lucia, Local Kitchen and Wine Bar), you’ll find a Ferdi’s sausage at the centre of their appropriately named Theo’s Barese Sausage, served atop fennel salad.

Sal’s isn’t the only buzzworthy new restaurant that’s been sourcing its sausages from Theo, though. Chef Giuseppe Sansone, of Pizzeria Badiali and Bar Buca fame, is a good friend of Theo’s, so when he joined forces with Phil Akkawi to launch Dad’s Breakfast and Coffee earlier this summer, slapping a Ferdi’s Foods sausage atop their house special Dad ’48 sandwich was a no-brainer.

Just last week, Ferdi’s sausages were at the centre of Tiny Market Co.‘s weekly lunch special, a sage and sourdough ragu as the Italian restaurant and pantry simultaneously began stocking Theo’s frozen sausages on their shelves.

Theo’s secret to what makes a great sausage? He tells Dished Toronto that it’s easier to first explain what he doesn’t like to see in a sausage, and then work backwards.

“You know when you go to the grocery store, to a butcher or wherever, and you look at the sausages, and you’re like ‘wow, they’re so big, and they look so flavourful and amazing,’ and then you take them home and you cook them, and they shrink to half their original size, and they’re, like, super dry and kind of salty, but nothing else?” Theo asks. Yeah, his goal was to make sure Ferdi’s sausages were the exact opposite of that.

Theo uses the British method when making sausages, where grain is added inside the sausage to promote extra volume and juice factor. In Ferdi’s case, he grinds brown rice right into the mix “just to get all that fat to stay in the sausage.”

And it works.

This is just the beginning, Theo tells Dished Toronto, of what he hopes will ultimately lead to a restaurant of his own one day.

“My dream has always been to have a restaurant,” Theo says. “You know, like, I love sausage making, but it was never, it’s never been the thing.”

So, the goal for now is to continue to build out Ferdi’s as a brand until the restaurant dream can become a reality. He’ll supply sausages to anyone who wants them to make it happen.

Inspired by Rome’s Roscioli Salumeria con Cucina, Theo opines on an eventual restaurant that doubles as a deli or store where he can sell prepared Ferdi’s products while offering lunch and dinner specials for eat-in visitors.

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“I’d love to have, like, a little place where it’s a cafe, but you can still come and buy the sausages and other stuff I like making. You know, I love making jams and pickles and that kind of stuff. Think like a British farmer’s store,” he says.

For the time being, you can try Ferdi’s Foods for yourself by keeping up with the business’s social media to find out when the next pop-up is happening, ordering online through Ferdi’s website, or checking out one of the growing number of restaurants serving up Ferdi’s products on their menus.

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