13 Sep 2007


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Local food heroes shortlisted for Quality Food Awards 2007


Quality Food Awards

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The prestigious Quality Food Awards have been running for 28 years and are highly recognised within the food and soft drinks industry as being a bench mark for quality and excellence.

This year, to recognise the growing consumer trend in locally produced and grown produce, the Quality Food Awards has teamed up with Tesco as partner for the Local Food category.

The UK’s leading supermarket, which already lists local produce in many of its stores nationwide, has subsidised the cost of entry into this category and the winner could receive a listing in Tesco (subject to a satisfactory visit assessment from one of Tesco’s technical managers) – a tremendous commercial opportunity for the winner and ultimate business accolade.

After judging over 60 products in the category, the shortlist is as follows:

• Bliekers Gin Trout (exclusive to Waitrose) – situated by the River Nidd in the Yorkshire Dales, Blieker’s Family Smokehouse specialises in smoking trout. Each whole gutted fish is cured with the addition of a little gin and gently hot smoked over English oak. The fruitiness of the gin perfectly compliments the succulence and delicate flavour of the trout

• Luxury Cullen Skink from Downies of Whitehills – This speciality soup takes its name from the town on the Moray coast in the North East of Scotland. Whitehills’ (in the North East of Scotland) aim is to offer quality local produce all brought together for the dining tables of Scotland

• Smoked Back Bacon from Wicks Manor – Pigs are born and bred on the Wicks Manor farm in Essex. The aim is to provide customers with quality local bacon which tastes the way bacon used to taste

• Ingram Valley Blackface lamb – Ingram Valley is in the north east of England. Scottish Blackface sheep were introduced into the region in 1950 and are a hardy, native breed suited to the hills. The aim of Ingram Valley is to bring to the North East gastro-tourism from the place so many people know and love

• Simply Ice Cream Honeycomb Crunch Ice Cream – Set in idyllic Kent and set up in 2005 on the back of a catering firm, Simply Ice Creams is made using cream from dairy farmers of Britain and other ingredients from local producers.

Emily Shamma, head of local sourcing at Tesco explains: ‘We know supporting local producers is important to our customers and that they would like us to stock more locally sourced products. To increase our locally sourced ranges, we have set up six new regional buying teams across England and Wales to add to our existing teams in Scotland and Northern Ireland. We are proud to subsidise the cost of entry to the Local Food category for small producers as we are committed to helping small local producers grow their businesses and want to give them the opportunity to benefit from these prestigious awards which recognise excellence in quality products.”

This year, the calibre of entrants into the category has been incredibly high. Foods entered ranged from Rapeseed Oil from West Yorkshire to Caramel Shortbread Ice Cream from Castle Douglas. All produce entered had to be grown or produced in a specific region. The judging panel is made up of a completely objective group of people all with different food backgrounds ranging from chef lecturers from Westminster Kingsway College to food writers and photographers.

Winners of each of the categories, including Local Food category will be announced on November 28th at the prestigious five-star Battersea Evolution in London. Due to the impressive calibre and quality of the entries in this category all of the short listed products will receive a Q mark together with another 8 products which the judges believed were worthy of merit and recognition. All Q marked products will also be announced on November 28th.

For tickets to the event please contact Nancy Mok on 01322 611240 or email Nancy.Mok@nexusmedia.com

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