Great Taste, the largest blind-tasted food awards scheme announced results showing some of the three-star winners for 2014. Included in the prestigious list are some local producers, proving that the Midlands can produce great food.
Local winners include Mr Crumb from Finea in Mullingar who produce sage and onion stuffing for Dunnes Stores. These fresh breadcrumbs are blended with onions, herbs, and sauteed in real Irish butter.
Oliver Carty Meats in Monksland brought home a number of stars for their own products including their organic dry cured slow roast smoked bacon belly and free-range dry cured unsmoked rasher. The pork and bacon supplier also won for their SuperValu range of rashers.
Brideswell based Waldron Meats also won for their home cured Irish back rashers.
Mullingar’s Bell Lane Coffee brought home a Great Taste star for their Misty Mountain filter full bodied espresso which consists of Ethiopian and Nicaraguan coffee.
Producers will now wait to see if they are in with a chance of the top awards in each region which will be announced at the Great Taste Golden Fork Awards Dinner in London on September 8.
Great Taste is simply about taste, not clever branding or smart packaging. Judges are presented with a spoonful of jam, a pie, a slice of salami, or a cup of espresso, with no wrappings, jars, or marks - and they taste, confer, and re-taste before making the decision on whether a product should be a Great Taste one, two, or three star winner.
Judged by over 400 of the most demanding palates belonging to food critics, chefs, cooks, members of the Women’s Institute, producers, and a host of food writers and journalists, Great Taste is widely acknowledged as the most respected food accreditation scheme for artisan and speciality food producers.
