Stephen Cadogan says winning eight of the top honours in the 2010 Great Taste awards represents unprecedented success for our food industry.
THE makers of more than 6,000 food products have been on tenterhooks for months, awaiting the results of the 2010 Great Taste Awards.
Each year the British Guild of Fine Food awards their seal of approval to superior quality producers throughout Britain and Ireland. Products are also included from other countries.
Inaugurated in 1993, their awards have become known as the ‘Oscars’ of the fine food sector. Judging standards are among the most rigorous in the industry. Every entry is blind tasted (so no one is influenced by attractive packaging and presentation), tested and discussed during two months of intense judging by 350 judges, comprising food writers, chefs, restaurant critics, farm shop owners, food producers and buyers.
By the time a product earns a gold star, it will have been assessed by several different teams of judges.
And before two or three stars are awarded, up to 20 judges must unanimously agree a product has achieved absolute perfection.
The guild guarantees food lovers that one star means "close to perfect"; two stars means "faultless"; three stars means "Wow, you must taste this".
This year a record number of 6,021 food and drink products were submitted. One, two or three gold stars have been handed out to 1,576 deserving products, and a hugely impressive 160 of those have gone to Irish entries. Only 95 were awarded three stars, and the eight of those from Ireland represent unprecedented success for our food industry. They now go into the next stage, of testing for major regional and national awards, after scrutiny by some of the most revered and feared British chefs, food critics and a smattering of celebrities.
The 2010 supreme winner will be announced at the final at Fortnum and Mason in London on September 6.
The winners will also be announced at the Speciality and Fine Food Fair in London.
The Guild of Fine Food’s Bob Farrand commented: "It’s so exciting to see the standards of food and drink in the British Isles go from strength to strength, year after year, proving that for those who enjoy great food, it’s there to be discovered. We have worked hard to ensure our judging process is as robust as possible. Judging teams are balanced in terms of experience, background and even gender, and every gold award-winning entry has been independently proven to be of the highest standard."
More and more consumers recognise the gold and black Great Taste Award logo as the benchmark for independently proven fine food. And winning is one of the most powerful tools to help grow business in the speciality food sector, in Britain.
Awards particularly help smaller producers, who lack big promotional budgets, to gain wider distribution and increase sales.
Taste Gold, the British Guild of Fine Food’s annual guide to award-winning foods, will promote the winners at more than 80 food exhibitions and festivals in Britain.
High level national and local publicity delivers year-round promotion for winning products (more than 30 million consumers are estimated to have read about the gold star winning food and drink last year).
Last September, 5.5m radio listeners heard Chris Evans talk to Great Taste Awards gold-star winning producers on his BBC Radio 2 drivetime show.
* Jervaulx Blue cheese is a good yardstick for the Great Taste Awards. Awarded three gold stars, it will be sampled by British Airways’ first and business class passengers, following a supply contract agreed with the aviation firm by the Wensleydale Creamery.
About 3,750kg of the cheese will go to British Airways. Only launched last April, it has also secured shelf space in more than 300 Waitrose supermarkets.
Ireland’s Cooleeney Farmhouse Cheese and J & L Grubb Ltd will be hoping for similar levels of success for their three gold star award winning cheeses.
THREE GOLD STARS
FROM cottage enterprises to our largest supermarket chains, Irish companies of all kinds have excelled in the 2010 Great Taste Awards.
The depth of talent in our food industry is reflected in the wide range of winners, from new to long established companies, and from more traditional Irish foods such as beef and pork to a plethora of awards for Irish companies in the coffee and tea business.
Many winners are small-scale artisan companies, but the strength of the mainstream sector is seen too, in wins for some our biggest dairy and beef companies.
* Raspberry Sorbet, Silver Pail Dairy, Fermoy, Co Cork.
* Wild Smoked Salmon, Woodcock Smokery, Castletownshend, Co Cork.
* Silver Hill Duck, Salt, Sugar and Oak Smoke, Ummera Smoked Products, Timoleague, Co Cork.
* Active Manuka Honey, Healys Honey Ltd, Maglin, Ballincollig, Co Cork.
