Great Taste Awards 2013: Who are the Irish Winners?

The Great Taste Awards, often referred to as the ‘Oscars of the Food Industry’, are the acknowledged benchmark for speciality food and drink across the UK and Ireland. This year food producers entered nearly 10,000 products with only 125 foods achieving the full total of three gold stars. The judging process is rigorous with over 400 judges spending over 50 days doing tastings before they decide which products will be awarded a gold star.

Winning a Great Taste Award has a twofold advantage. Firstly, it means that we, as the consumer, know that the product has been awarded on great taste alone and not all on the other trappings such as packaging. Secondly, for producers, it helps differentiate their product from all the other competition out there.

So how did Ireland do? Overall 496 Irish products were awarded gold stars. 16 Irish products received the coveted three stars, 61 products received two stars while 419 received one gold star. I'm just going to concentrate on those that received 3 stars but congratulations to all the producers who received one and two stars. The sixteen products that won are:

Products	Company Name
Corleggy Goats Cheese	Corleggy Cheeses
Corleggy Condiments - Port Jelly	Corleggy Cheeses
Burren Smoked Irish Organic Salmon seaweed marinat	Burren Smokehouse Ltd
Burren Hot Smoked Irish Organic Salmon with Honey, Lemon & Dill	Burren Smokehouse Ltd
Honey infused Burren Smoked Irish Organic Salmon	Burren Smokehouse Ltd
Stonewell Medium Dry Cider	Stonewell Cider
Stonewell Dry Cider	Stonewell Cider
Kilcree Gold Organic Honey	Aldi Stores Ireland Ltd.
Duck Breast with Garlic & Pepper, 350g	Lidl Ireland
Abbey Farm Gooseberry Preserve	Abbey Farm Foods
William Carr & Sons Smoked Mackerel	William Carr & Sons Ltd
Newgrange Gold Camelina Oil	Newgrange Gold Ltd.
Cashel Blue	J&L Grubb Ltd./Cashel Blue
Oak smoked Haddock	Duncannon Smokehouse
Wilkie's Organic Chocolate - Tumbes 75% Cocoa	Wilkie's Chocolate
Simply Better Ardrahan Cheese	Traditional Cheese Company

A few of these products, such as Cashel Blue and Burren Salmon, I am very familiar with and buy on a regular basis. The Newgrange Gold Camelina Oil is only something I recently discovered and love to use on salads. The other products I am not so familiar with but seeing that they have received these stars and knowing from personal experience the outstanding quality of the products that I already use, will ensure that I will be on the lookout for the rest of them. 

On a little side note one of my favourite finds of the year has been Wild About who I discovered at the Galway Food Festival. They produce pestos, syrups and preserves from Ireland's native, seasonal and wild ingredients. We are particularly fond of their Fennel Cider Butter and Raspberry Beret in this household. Their Rhubarb Syrup was awarded two stars and would you believe it, I have a bottle in the cupboard. I have been told it goes particularly well with prosecco!!

To find out more about the Great Taste Awards 2013 or to find out about all the other Irish winners check out their website.