Tag: Great Taste Awards

NI Celebrates Success At Golden Fork Dinner

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Column by Michele Shirlow for Farm Week (14 September)

Three Golden Forks for Northern Ireland is this year’s Great Taste Awards is a very good haul by any measure. While we didn’t secure the Supreme Champion title at the gala dinner in London hosted by the highly influential UK Guild of Fine, the championship was still retained on the island of Ireland, an achievement that speaks volume for the quality and providence of our meat in particular and the innovation of the butchers who are continually coming up with outstandingly tasty new products.

Our own Peter Hannan of Hannan Meats, a Food NI director and long-time supporter of our aims and especially of our engagement in the British marketplace, gained the Northern Ireland Regional Golden Fork from Invest NI for his stunning sweet cure bacon rack. He came close to the top award and also achieved three gold stars for his Glenarm salt-aged lamb rump, appropriately during Love Lamb Week.

Hannan, as most readers of this column, will be aware is now the most decorated company from the UK and Ireland in the Great Taste, winning the Supreme Champion title on two separate occasions, in 2012 and 2016 and collecting over 200 separate gold stars for his meats.

Another local meat producer, Ispini Charcuterie, from a family farm at Aughnacloy, won the Best Charcuterie in the UK award for its unique rosemary and thyme bresaola – just eight months after the formation of the business by pig farmer Jonny Cuddy and sister Janice. Charcuterie is a target growth area being promoted by the UK Guild of Fine Food, and for Ispini to win this Golden Fork is a truly remarkable achievement.

Our good friends and dedicated butter makers Will and Allison of Abernethy Butter in Dromara deservedly earned the VIP Golden Fork organised by Woman and Home magazine in a vote by its readership. To be selected by readers of the magazine, most of who are based in Britain, is another stunning achievement for a small local business.

So, well done all the Northern Ireland winners including Davy and Janet Uprichard of Tempted Cider in Lisburn whose elderflower cider was listed in the Top 50 Foods along with Peter Hannan’s sweet cure bacon and Glenarm lamb.

Also remarkable is the Irish dominance, especially meat producers, in the Great Taste Supreme Champion Award. Only once since 2011 has this coveted award gone outside Ireland. We’ve won it an impressive three times since 2011 – George McCartney of McCartney’s Meats, Moira in 2011, Peter Hannan in 2012 and 2016 and two producers from the Republic – Pat Whelan of James Whelan Butchers in Clonmel in 2015 for his beef dripping and Hugh Maguire of Maguire’s Meats of Ashbourne, Co. Meath for his smoked black pudding in 2017.

Last week was, in fact, the third consecutive year a meat product was named the Supreme Champion at the Great Taste Awards – all from the island of Ireland.

Some 12,366 products entered into the awards. The smoked black pudding was one of over 100 smoked products that picked up Great Taste Awards. So, there’s clearly a developing trend towards hand smoked foods. Smoked eel from Lough Neagh also did exceptionally well, picking up three gold stars.

What the Great Taste achievements demonstrate is the growing awareness in Britain of Northern Ireland’s premium quality food and drink. In particular, the success of Abernethy Butter in the public vote organised by Women and Home magazine, which includes an excellent food section edited by Jane Curran, shows how a strategic focus on Great Britain can pay off in terms of consumer recognition and business.

Peter Hannan already has significant business there, and the success of Ispini ought to encourage this smaller business to target this market. There will be many wishing to taste a product rated the Best Charcuterie in Britain.

Food NI has taken this message to Britain by our participation in last week’s Speciality and Fine Food Fair. We had hundreds of original products on show from almost 30 producers. Our aim will be to do as much as our resources allow to build on the market profile of our food in Britain.

 

Great Taste Awards 2017 On The Horizon

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Article by Michele Shirlow MBE for Farm Week

The annual Great Taste Awards will soon be upon us. I expect that we will hear from the UK Guild of Fine Food which local food and drink companies have met and exceeded the exacting standards set for the three categories on gold stars and the Top 50 UK Foods within the next two weeks.

The Supreme Champion title, won last year by Hannan Meats in Moira, Co Down, will be revealed at the beginning of September and ahead of the Speciality and Fine Food Fair at Olympia in London.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Food NI will be showcasing the best of Northern Ireland food and drink at the event. We are currently encouraging local companies to be part of this important presentation at the show which attracts thousands of trade buyers, making it a great route into the strategically important marketplace in Great Britain.

The Great Taste Awards is a hugely important competition for our companies and also for the wider Northern Ireland food and drink industry. And we’ve a great track record in the influential competition. Northern Ireland companies have won the supreme title on three separate occasions – McCartney’s Butchers and Deli in 2011 and Hannan Meats twice – 2012 and 2016 – and the only UK producer to do so. Hannan has also won more gold stars than any other company in the UK and Ireland. I am confident he can secure a hat trick, if not this year, in the not too distant future.

A host of smaller companies have also done extremely well in the coveted awards and have succeeded in securing prestigious business in Britain. Abernethy Butter of Dromore, for instance, gained three gold stars last year and is now on the menus of top hotels and restaurants in Britain.

The company, run by Will and Allison Abernethy, specialises in hand crafted butter, has also just announced business with the Spa Hotel in historic Tunbridge Wells and Yummy Stilton of Cropley Bishop, home of stilton cheese. Other local companies which have won three stars in recent years include Baronscourt Estate Venison from Omagh, Ewing’s Seafood of Belfast, Fermanagh’s Fivemiletown Cheese and Genesis Bakery of Magherafelt. Hundreds of other small companies have also gained gold stars, far too many to list here. They all merit great praise for the quality of their products and for their willingness to benchmark these with others from around the British Isles.

Other companies which have done well in the Great Taste Awards have gone forward to win major competitions in Britain and beyond. Mash Direct in Comber is a good example of a medium sized company which has pitched its products and overall professionalism against larger and often multinational competitors, winning the very prestigious UK Food Manufacturing Excellence Award last year and also the award for innovation at the big SIAL international food show in the Middle East. Moy Park in Craigavon also won the UK Food Manufacturing Excellence Award  the year preceding Mash Directs success. The Quiet Man Irish Whiskey from Derry won no fewer than four silver awards at this month’s International Spirits Challenge in London. Other local drinks companies such as Co Antrim’s Old Bushmills Whiskey, Shortcross Gin, Echlinville Distillery, Tempted Cider and MacIvor’s Cider has also been successful in international events.

As I mentioned earlier, taking part in major awards such as the Great Taste Awards is an important way companies can benchmark their products and processes against competitors particularly in Britain and RoI and improve their competitiveness. It helps improve business and also showcases Northern Ireland as a source of great food and drink, the latter being one of Food NI’s objectives in our Taste the Greatness action plan. Good luck to all the NI entrants awaiting award results.