SMALL PRINT:THEY ARE one of the best-loved parts of an Irish breakfast, a product smuggled through airports to emigrants, reminisced about, brought on holidays and adored so much that Facebook users have set up at least two profiles in its honour (pictured right). So it was hardly surprising that when the announcement of Superquinn's receivership broke, it wasn't the possibility of thousands of jobs being in jeopardy that was widely discussed, but the idea that Superquinn sausages were somehow in danger of disappearing, with fans all over the country worried about their beloved sausages.

The supermarket has made some 350 million of the sausages since the product was first launched in 1979. The tastiness of the Superquinn sausage is no fluke.

During the 1970s, after visiting Germany – a country that knows a thing or two about a good sausage – Fergal Quinn set out to perfect a sausage that would most suit the Irish palate. He then took this new creation to Superquinn customers in a market research excercise that fine-tuned the Superquinn sausage we know today.

But what now? Will Superquinn’s economic worries and the takeover by Musgraves jeopardise a food as intrinsic to Irish cuisine as Tayto crisps and Barry’s tea?

For the time being, the sausage is safe. A Superquinn spokewoman says: “It’s business as usual from Superquinn’s point of view. As far as we’re concerned, everything customers could buy in the shops yesterday, they can buy today, tomorrow and into the future.”

Still, no reason not to stock up . . . just in case.