Top French award for Caherbag white pudding range a real boost

WEST Cork food producer Caherbeg Free Range Pork has just won a highly respected French award for its Rosscarbery Recipes White Pudding range.

The Rosscarbery brand won the Champion d’Irlande (Coupe) 2010 for its white pudding in a competition organised by La Commanderie des Fins Goustiers du Duché d’Alencon.

Other recent wins for Caherbeg include golds at the Great Taste Awards (UK), Le Confrérie des Chevaliers du Goute-Boudin (also France), a silver at the Blas na hÉireann (A Taste of Ireland).

Caherbeg founder and co-owner, Avril Allshire, said: “We entered four competitions in the last year and we’ve won an award at each. We only entered to see how our products stack up against other products in Ireland, the UK and France.

“The product we enter into the competitions is the same as what we put on the shelf. We don’t make any special effort, so all these wins must say something about the quality of our produce.

“Our motto is ‘obsessed with quality’, which is a fair description of my husband, Willie. The Caherbeg brands are all made from our own free range pork, and the Rosscarbery range is all from locally sourced pork.”

Sourcing local produce is also the core philosophy of Love Irish Food (LIF) brand, of which Caherbeg is a member. In fact, LIF member companies have swept the boards at a series of recent national and international awards.

Seven Love Irish Food brands won 33 gold stars at this year’s Great Taste Awards. Follain, Flahavans, Caherbeg Free Range Pork, Butlers, Cully and Sully, Bewleys and Robert Roberts all won gold stars for one or more of their products. Over 6,000 Irish and British products entered the Great Taste Awards, organised by the Guild of Fine Foods.

LIF programme director, Sharon Colgan, said the members were delighted with these award wins. While Irish consumers have already expressed their preference for food of local origin, the awards prove that the LIF-branded products are also a big hit with expert judging panels at home and abroad.

Sharon Colgan said: “All products are judged by at least three different judging panels. All the tasting is blind and the judges are fine food retailers, chefs, restaurant critics, food writers and other industry experts.

“I am thrilled by how well all of the Love Irish Food member brands have performed. Once again it proves the high quality and standards of Irish food.

“It’s great to see so many of the Love Irish Food brands achieving such high accolades in tough economic times.”

Meanwhile, 10 LIF members were among the winners at the recent Blas na hÉireann National Irish Food Awards in Dingle, Co Kerry. Winners included Truly Irish, Butlers, Broderick’s, Cully & Sully, Bluehaven Food Company, Rosscarbery, Brady Family, The Jelly Bean Factory, Follain and Froberry.