Natural casings

Van Hessen’s dedication to its customers starts right at the slaughterhouse – ensuring the best and most consistent products. Van Hessen operates on a fully integrated basis, with dedication in the entire chain from procurement, production until distribution. In addition, van Hessen has a generation long dedication to training craftsmen ensuring the best professionals in the industry work throughout our supply chain. Our positioning in the supply chain in combination with our dedicated and professional people, result in high quality, consistent and effective product for our customers.

Sheep casings

Our natural lamb and sheep sausage casings are perfect for fine emulsion or coarse grid products, including cooked, smoked or fresh sausage. Each sheep casing is translucent and white to provide a glossy, professional look. We offer long and extra-long strand specifications for maximum efficiency during processing.

Sheep casings are the highest quality small diameter casings used for the finest sausages such as: Wieners, Knackwurst, Chipolata, Merguez, Nürnberger Bratwurst, Bockwurst and Frankfurters.

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Our sheep casings can be delivered in:

  • Different qualities from AA to C
  • Calibers ranges from 14 mm to 28/+ mm
  • XL and XXL specifications for superior efficiency

Make ups

  • Dry salted bundles or netpack
  • On proline tubes or proline pipes
  • “Easy fill" and “ready to use” in E2 crates
  • Overlapped, “gestossen”or 1 strand per tube

Our specialties include

  • Equal length specifications

Hog casings

Our natural hog casings are ideal for fresh, smoked and dry sausages. Uniform size and shape allow for consistency and minimal waste. Because our hog casings are all natural, they have a tender and firm bite, providing just the right resistance. They’re also transparent so they easily highlight your sausages’ quality ingredients.

Hog casings are used for numerous types of sausages such as grill sausage, Bockwurst, Boudin Blanc / Noir, Chorizo, cooked sausage, Pepperoni, Italian sausage and Bratwurst.



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Our hog casings can be delivered in:

  • Calibers ranging from 26 mm to 51/+ mm from whiskered and whiskerfree raw materials.
  • XL and XXL specifications for superior efficiency.

Various make ups

  • dry salted bundles or netpack
  • on proline tubes or proline pipes
  • "easy fill" and “ready to use” in E2 crates

Our specialties include

  • Dyed casings
  • Sow casings
  • Plucked casings
  • Turned casings
  • Equal length specifications made to order

Fat ends

Our fatends will give your cooked or dry sausage that typical natural look. In our factories every fatend has been processed manually; this way we can guarantee the best quality. Our fatends undergo a process 28 different steps before the finished products is up to our high standards.

We supply all calibers and lengths at our customers’ request, with or without crown.

Fatends are used for Liver sausage, Braunschweiger, Genoa, Thuringer and dry and semi dry sausages such as Spanish Lomo, Salchizon and Chorizo.

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After ends

We supply our afterends in nets of 100 pieces. The caliber of our afterends varies from 40/43 until 65/70. The length of the afterends can vary from 20cm until 60cm upon request. We can also supply bundles of 9 meters, pre-selected, separated or unseparated in 50/+ and 50/-.

Our afterends have various make-ups

  • Tied with a loop
  • Tied without a loop
  • Woodstick (cheville)


Afterends are primarily used for Saucisse Morteau, Saucisse de Montbéliard, Liver sausage, Braunschweiger, Genoa, Thuringer, Summer sausage and Cervelats.

Beef casings

Our natural beef casings bring out the best in traditional ring-shaped or large diameter sausages. With a firm bite and uniform shape and size, your customers can expect a bold, flavorful, consistent experience every time. You can choose from a thick-walled traditional look or a fat-free, seamless casing to best suit your product.

Van Hessen teams up with renowned beef casings specialists from South America. Only the best is good enough for our customers. For rounds, middles and caps we focus on consistency, strength and fat free products, suitable for both dry and cooked applications.

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The three most commonly used types of beef casings are: beef bung caps, beef rounds and beef middles. Beef bung caps are used for Capocolla, veal sausage, large Bologna, Lebanon and cooked Salami. Beef rounds are used for ring Bologna, ring liver sausage, Mettwurst, Polish sausage, blood sausage, Kishka and Holsteiner. 

Beef middles can be used for Leona style sausage, all other types of Bologna, dry and semi-dry Cervelats, dry and cooked Salami and veal sausage. The wall thickness is largely determined by the amount of fat left on the finished casing. Beef casings with a heavy textured wall will have some fat on the casing wall while casings with thin texture will have virtually no fat.

Beef rounds can be delivered in:

  • Caliber ranges from 32 mm to 50/+ mm
  • Bundles of 18, 30, 50, 90 and 100 meters

Beef middles can be delivered in:

  • Caliber ranges from 40/45mm to 65/+ mm
  • Bundles of 9, 18 and 30 meters

Beef bung caps can be delivered in:

  • Caliber ranges from 90/110mm (small), 110/120mm (middle-wide) and 120/+mm (wide)

Benefits of casings

Our natural hog, sheep and beef casings bring out the best in any sausage. They’re completely natural and traditional. Nothing artificial. Nothing manufactured. Because of this your sausage stays tender, juicy and fresh, with that distinctive “snap” that makes every bite mouth-watering.

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The benefits of natural sausage casings include:

  • Variable permeability allows the product to 'breathe’, which contributes to enhancing the sweet aroma of fresh sausage, whether resting in a meat case, or sizzling on a stove or grill
  • Bite into a sausage made with natural casings and you'll experience a distinctive 'snap' that only natural casings provide
  • Natural casings help protect and retain the fine flavor of your sausage
  • Thanks to its endothermic quality, sausages in natural casings stay tender and juicy, maintain a fresher appearance, and help provide extended shelf life
  • Superior tensile strength enables maximum yields for sausage manufacturers
  • Sausages in natural casings have a well-filled, substantial and appealing appearance
  • "Natural" continues to be one of the most powerful words influencing consumers' buying decisions today