Homemade products earn Drewton’s Farm Shop prestigious gold star ratings

Drewton’s Farm Shop in East Yorkshire has picked up prestigious gold star ratings for two of its homemade products in the Guild of Fine Foods’ 2014 Great Taste Awards.

The popular farm shop’s Traditional Pork Pie was given a gold star, which stands for ‘Simply Delicious’, and its Sticky Toffee and Date Pudding received two gold stars after the panel of expert judges rated it ‘Outstanding’. Both products appear on the menu in the Farm Shop’s restaurant and tea room, but are also available for customers to buy to take home with them. They are made in-house using the finest local ingredients.

After tasting the pudding, the judges noted: “Glorious deep toffee aroma and colour, full of date appeal. The sponge is much lighter than it appeared with a good balance of dates and toffee flavour, very buttery. Good portion size and consistency of sauce, we could have eaten it all.”

Katie Taylor, proprietor of Drewton’s Farm Shop, said: “This is the latest in a string of awards that we’ve won for our homemade products. We believe that it’s really important to invite industry experts to critique our products in this way; their feedback is an important way of gauging quality and making improvements where necessary. The Traditional Pork Pie and the Sticky Toffee and Date Pudding are both very popular with customers, so it’s pleasing to see that the judging panel were in agreement.”

Since the Great Taste Awards were established in 1994, more than 80,000 products from all over the UK have been blind tasted by expert judges. Only the very best receive a one, two or three gold star rating ““ most entrants receive nothing at all. Those food and drink producers that receive a star rating are entitled to badge their products with the appropriate number of stars and the Great Taste logo, which has become a highly-prized benchmark for success in the speciality food industry.

Products are rated on taste alone and the panel of judges includes top chefs and restaurateurs, as well as people who run delis and farm shops, top food hall and retail buyers, acclaimed cooks, food writers and journalists, jam and cake experts from the WI, cheese makers and farmers.

Drewton’s Farm Shop also recently received two accolades in the EBLEX Best Burger Challenge 2014. The All Meat Ranch Burger was awarded silver, and the Rosemary and Mint Lamb Burger was given a bronze award. EBLEX is the organisation for beef and lamb levy payers in England, and its annual awards attract entries from butchers and farm shops all over the country.

Drewton’s Farm Shop has also been shortlisted in the ‘Taste of Yorkshire’ category in Welcome to Yorkshire’s 2014 White Rose Awards. The winners will be announced on Monday 17 November at an awards ceremony at the Yorkshire Events Centre in Harrogate.