Fresh produce caused a stir at this year’s Guild of Fine Food Great Taste Awards, with Beckleberry’s (Fine Foods) Blackcurrent & Kirsch Sorbet collecting three awards including the supreme champion Fortnum & Mason trophy.

The Guild’s awards recognises top-quality local, regional and speciality food and drink and, this year, received 4,753 product entries. Of those entries, the trade association awarded 847 one gold star, 220 two gold star and 72 three gold star ratings, as well as 18 speciality awards.

Blaydon upon Tyne-based Beckleberry’s winning sorbet is a new product for the father-and-son team Ian and Peter Craig, who produce more than 100 sorbets, ice creams and cakes for the foodservice industry. “It was great to win the Best Speciality in the North East award, and then the Best English Speciality, but we were absolutely shocked to then go on to win the overall trophy,” Ian Craig told FPJ.

Beckleberry’s sources the blackcurrants used for its award-winning sorbet from Denmark mainly and sources most of the fruit it uses through the North East Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Market in Gateshead. “Quality comes first when we pick out the fruit we are going to use,” said Peter Craig. “And we get really top-class product from the wholesale market.”

It was also a good night for Gabriel David, managing director of Luscombe Organic Drinks, which received a one gold star rating for three of its products - Devon Apple Juice, Lime Crush and Sicilian Lemonade.

David’s family farm business in south Devon originally produced cider from its orchard, but now sources organic fruit from its own growers’ group to make 14 different types of drinks and juices.

The company has launched two new products - Blueberry Crush and Carrot & Sicilian Orange Juice. David sources the blueberries for his drinks from Denmark, but has plans to start an organic production of the fruit on his own farm in the future.

Oswestry-based company The Best Taste Company was also awarded two gold stars for its Blackcurrant Coulis and a one star rating for its Raspberry Coulis. And Pipers Crisps received two gold stars for its West Country Cheddar & Onion Crisps and one gold star for three other favours. Owner of the company, Alex Albone is a potato farmer originally and started Pipers Crisps in 2004 as a way of breaking into the farmers’ market trend that, as a farmer in Lincolnshire, he felt he could not access. Albone is on the verge of launching a new Bloody Mary flavour of crisps, which involves a partnership with tomato producer Cornerways Nursery in East Anglia.

The awards, known in the industry as the Oscars of the food world, took place on September 8, and are organised by the Guild of Fine Food, which will be celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. The association has been transforming the lives of many speciality food producers, helping many grow from tiny to mainstream producers, since 1993.

A Great Taste Award is the authoritative, independent standard for Britain’s fine food sector: more and more consumers recognise the gold and black logo as the benchmark for independently proven fine food.

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