Almost 100 food judges are preparing to taste the very best food and drink produced in Ireland as Great Taste 2013 comes to a boil in Dublin.  Taking place at Bewley’s Hotel, Ballsbridge in Dublin, Great Taste 2013 involves a panel of judges which represents some of the most experienced and demanding palates from Ireland and the UK.

From nationally acclaimed restaurant critics to award-winning chefs, food writers, journalists and restaurateurs, food retailers and buyers – each judge will be responsible for blind tasting over 1000 products and giving constructive feedback.  The top foods will then be awarded Great Taste stars – the ultimate accolade in the world of speciality food – with those bestowed 3-stars judged again in July in London.

As part of the Great Taste event, and to enable the food trade to mingle and network, the Guild of Fine Food, organisers of Great Taste, is also holding a Reception, supported by IFSA and Pallas Foods, at the RDS Members Club on 24th April.

A record number of entries have been received from food and drink producers in Ireland by organisers of Great Taste 2013 – over 2400 in total from the whole Food Isle.  From Northern Ireland there are 627 entries (up by 29% on 2012) and in the Republic of Ireland a total of 1806 products have been entered (43% up on 2012).

“The Great Taste Supreme Champion, the overall winning product each year, has for the last two years been a product made in Northern Ireland and so our expectations are very high before we even start judging,” explains John Farrand, organiser of the Great Taste Award scheme. “McCartney’s of Moira triumphed in 2011 with its traditional corned beef, and Hannan Meats, also based in Moira, securing the trophy last year with an Italian inspired bacon called Moyallan Guanciale. In 2006, a smoked wild salmon from West Cork’s Woodcock Smokery was crowned Supreme Champion.”

Patrick Clement, Marketing & Development Manager at Pallas Foods said “Great Taste is the most trusted and recognised food and drink awards in Ireland and the UK. Pallas Foods is delighted to support the awards in Dublin this April. Being awarded a Great Taste star or more is a fantastic achievement and great acknowledgement for any business. In Ireland we have brilliant artisan food producers, I would encourage any of them to enter the award and get the stars they duly deserve giving their products great recognition.”

Since 1994, Great Taste has been organised by The Guild of Fine Food and over the last 19 years more than 70,000 products have been blind-tasted by judges including top restaurateurs, chefs, food critics, fine food retailers, buyers and cookery writers.   The announcement of the Supreme Champion 2013 sponsored by Harrods, will be made on the 9th September.

3-stars: Exquisite. Wow! Taste that.   2-stars: Outstanding   1-star: A virtually faultless food

Entries are open for the Irish News Workplace & Employment Awards 2013. The Workplace & Employment Awards have been lauded for having developed into one of the biggest and most successful business initiatives anywhere in Ireland.

The awards seek to unearth those exceptional companies and organisations in the north, which are putting an emphasis on developing, nurturing and getting the best out of their people.

Now in their seventh year, the 2013 awards will take place in Titanic Belfast on Thursday June 13, hosted by the BBC’s Karen Patterson and, as in previous years, is likely to be a 400-plus sell-out.

Make sure your company doesn’t miss it’s time to bloom. Enter the Irish News Workplace & Employment Awards now – see www.irishnews.com/wea 

Picture Caption:

Pictured at Titanic Belfast are representatives from the key business partners in this year’s Irish News Workplace & Employment Awards. From left, clockwise, DEL minister Dr Stephen Farry (representing Investors in People), William Hamilton (Liberty IT), Alan Egner (Power NI), Mark Regan (Kingsbridge Private Hospital), Lynn Livingstone (Tesco Northern Ireland), Anna Beggan (Tughans) and Judith Owens

(Titanic Belfast)

Down Royal Racecourse is excited to introduce Taste @downroyal. This is a new, casual hospitality offering which incorporates the best of Northern Irish Produce along with the thrilling experience of being at the races. This relaxed dining option will be launched on the May Day race meeting on 6th May in the newly refurbished Moscow Flyer Suite. In a step away from tradition, the suite will be furnished with sofas, poser tables and high stools, there will be no designated seating and the suite will be laid out in such a way to encourage you to relax and mingle with fellow racing enthusiasts.

The quality and provenance of the food is the highlight of this package. Light taster bowls of hot food from local celebrated suppliers will be served before racing and during racing a dessert and artisan cheese table will be open for grazing!

The Taste menu is designed to showcase the best in local produce cooked in a simple and delicate way. The exciting new Taste @downroyal package costs £47.50 per person and includes entrance to the racecourse, racecard to check the runners and riders, premium located suite and a taster menu showcasing the best of Northern Irish Produce including dessert and artisan cheeses.

Mike Todd, General Manager of Down Royal commented:

“We’re thrilled to be able to offer our customers at Down Royal a less formal hospitality offering in top class facilities. The refurbishment of the Moscow Flyer Suite completes the redevelopment of the whole site at Down Royal. The Moscow Flyer Suite is the premier suite at the racecourse and it is fantastic to open it up to a wider range of Down Royal visitors.”

Glenn Rodgers of Rodgers Meats in Castlereagh, who will be supplying the meat used in the Taste @downroyal package, reaffirms Down Royal’s commitment to local producers:

“We’re pleased to be able to showcase our local quality meats in conjunction with Down Royal Racecourse. We believe that Northern Ireland has an enviable position within the global meat industry with rich green pastures and good animal husbandry. Our beef is hung for at least 21 days in order to give our customers a premium product and we are looking forward to the collaboration with Down Royal and Hamilton Kirk to celebrate these products.”

Gates open at 12:30pm for the May Day race meeting on the 6th May 2013, with the first race taking place at 2.25pm. Admission is £10 for adults and children receive free admission.  Log onto www.downroyal.com for further information.  Follow Down Royal at www.facebook.com/down-royal-racecourse or @ twitter.com/downroyal.

Picture shows: Key Stage 4 student Niamh McCrossan from Aquinas Grammar School celebrates being announced as the Dairy Council for Northern Ireland’s Young Cook of the Year 2013. The prestigious accolade was awarded to Niamh, who beat off stiff competition to triumph over twelve finalists at a cook off in Thornhill College, Derry / Londonderry.

Niamh took inspiration from this year’s theme, which celebrates that Derry/Londonderry has been awarded the honour of the first ever UK City of Culture, by creating a two course meal using Northern Ireland dairy products to entertain friends who will be watching the celebrations.

Tandragee crisp company Tayto and Lisburn restaurant Del Toro topped the leader board in this year’s Food NI sponsored categories of the Northern Ireland Food and Drink Awards 2013 (NIFDA) – the most important awards in Northern Ireland’s food industry calendar.

The awards, which honour the work of our home grown producers and celebrate the contribution which the agri-food industry plays in our economy, took place at Belfast’s Ramada Plaza Hotel where food and drink producers and restaurateurs gathered to celebrate the growth in the sector.

Michele Shirlow, chief executive of Food NI, Northern Ireland’s promotional body for the food and drink industry, praised the high standard of entries in this year’s categories for NIFDA 2013 and congratulated the winners in both of their sponsored categories.

She said: “There was a great buzz about the awards this year. We all clearly have one thing in common and that’s our love for food and drink and enjoying meals out. We received thousands of votes which demonstrates the strength of feeling in Northern Ireland for our producers and restaurants.

“What is special about these awards is that they are driven by the public who get an opportunity to have their say. We would like to thank everyone for taking the time to be part of our categories.

“My congratulations go out to everyone who participated and especially to Tayto and  Del Toro.”

Food NI sponsored The People’s Choice and Taste of Ulster Restaurant Award categories which attracted 23 producers to nominate one of their own products while 22 restaurants battled it out for the Taste of Ulster Restaurant Award.

Tayto put forward theirTayto Cheese and Onion Crisps which scored most popular with voters securing the product the People’s Choice Award while Del Toro of Lisburn, a busy restaurant in Lisburn, secured the title of Taste of Ulster Restaurant Award.

Elly Hunter, who collected the award at the Ramada Plaza Hotel, Belfast, for Tandragee based Tayto, said: “We are delighted that Tayto has been crowned ‘People’s Choice’ at the NIFDA 2013.  This is a tremendous achievement and means a lot to us as it was voted for by the general public.  I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who took the time to vote for Tayto Cheese and Onion.  We know our crisps are much-loved and it means a lot of have our fans stand up and be counted.”

Coming in close second in the People’s Choice Award was Punjana Tea and in third place was Armagh Cider Company for their Madden’s Mellow.

Anton and Bronagh Campbell were also at the glittering ceremony to collect the award for Del Toro in Lisburn.

Bronagh said: “The team at Del Toro are delighted to pick up this award again which follows our success in 2011. We use locally produced food in our restaurant which is what people want and what we support. This award is testament to the amount of hard work which we put in to the restaurant and we thank everyone who voted for us.”

Taking second place in this category was Katch 27 of Kircubbin and Denvirs Hotel in Downpatrick taking third place.

In Northern Ireland, over 100,000 private sector jobs depend on the success and continued growth of the agri-food sector which has an estimated turnover of £4billion.

Michele Shirlow added: “2013 will be another exciting year for food and drink producers in Northern Ireland, especially with the opportunities that the World Police and Fire Games will bring, and we look forward to building on the success of the sector.”

Food NI were delighted to be Highly Commended for the Best Local Food and/Or Drink Promotion Event/Initiative for the 2012 Balmoral Show Food Pavilion 2012!

Any food and drink producers wishing to become a Food NI member can contact 02890 249449 for more details.

Photo Caption 1: Michele Shirlow (Food NI) with Elly Hunter (Tayto)

Photo Caption 2: Michele Shirlow (Food NI) with Anton and Bronagh Campbell (Del Toro)

After a series of triumphant performances by foods from the island of Ireland in the annual Great Taste awards scheme, its British-based organiser is to stage part of 2013’s judging in Dublin.

The Guild of Fine Food, the trade body for speciality food & drink retailers and producers, is looking for chefs, deli owners and other food experts to take part in a week of tastings in late April at Bewley’s Hotel. They will join teams of judges working in London and the south-west of England to help independently assess around 10,000 food and drink products, to see if they are worthy to carry the influential black and gold Great Taste logo.

Northern Ireland has provided the Great Taste Supreme Champion for the past two years. McCartney’s of Moira triumphed in 2011 with its traditional corned beef, and Hannan Meats, also based in Moira, securing the trophy last year with an Italian inspired bacon called Moyallan Guanciale. In 2006, a smoked wild salmon from West Cork’s Woodcock Smokery was crowned Supreme Champion.

“Our panel of experts is continually impressed with the products entered into Great Taste from the Republic and Northern Ireland and we felt the right thing to do was take Great Taste to Dublin,” explained John Farrand, organiser of Great Taste. “In order to maintain our robust judging process, we need to bring together a balanced team of judges and we are asking chefs, food producers, food buyers and fine food retailers to step forward if they feel they would like to be part of the judging team.

“This involves blind-tasting a wide variety of food and drink, which is a wonderful experience for people with an interest in supporting the fine food sector,”

“Judging Great Taste involves simply tasting products and giving honest feedback – it is important that producers get constructive, accurate feedback from our judges and this is part of the value of Great Taste. This is an opportunity for buyers, chefs and anyone working in food to be part of finding what could be the best Irish product for 2013 so there is a lot at stake.”

The week’s judging, supported by distributor Pallas Foods, also means that the majority of producers from Ireland will not have to send their products to London or Dorset – ensuring their foods are judged in peak condition.

“Great Taste is the most trusted and recognised food and drink awards in Ireland and the UK. Pallas Foods is delighted to support the awards in Dublin this April. Being awarded a Great Taste star or more is a fantastic achievement and great acknowledgement for any business. In Ireland we have brilliant artisan food producers, I would encourage any of them to enter the award and get the stars they duly deserve giving their products great recognition,” said Patrick Clement, Marketing & Development Manager at Pallas Foods.

Judging will be held at Bewley’s Hotel at Ballsbridge in Dublin during the week commencing 22 April 2013.

The Guild of Fine Food is recruiting judges in Ireland. If you feel your palate is qualified, contact charlie.westcar@finefoodworld.co.uk for an application form.

Since 1994, Great Taste has been organised by The Guild of Fine Food and over the last 19 years more than 70,000 products have been blind-tasted by judges including top restaurateurs, chefs, food critics, fine food retailers, buyers and cookery writers.

The announcement of the Supreme Champion 2013 sponsored by Harrods, will be made on the 9th September.

For further information please contact any of the following:

Joanne Myram at Positive PR on: joanne@positivepr.co.uk 01935 389497

Or tortie.farrand@finefoodworld.co.uk/ john.farrand@finefoodworld.co.uk / 01963 824464

Guild of Fine Food, Guild House, Station Road, Wincanton, Somerset BA9 9FE
www.finefoodworld.co.uk www.greattasteawards.co.uk