Great Taste, the world’s most coveted blind-tasted food awards, which celebrates the very best in food and drink, has announced the Great Taste stars of 2016. Out of 10,000 products to be judged, Shipley based bakery, Just Desserts was awarded a 2-star Great Taste Award for its individual Pear and Almond Franzipan tart and 1-star for its Yorkshire Moggy Parkin.
Judged by more than 500 of the most demanding palates from food critics, chefs, cooks, restaurateurs and producers, as well as a whole host of food writers and journalists, Great Taste is widely acknowledged as the most respected food accreditation scheme for artisan and speciality food producers.
As well as a badge of honour, the unmistakeable black and gold Great Taste label is a signpost to a wonderful tasting product, which has been discovered through hours of blind-tasting by hundreds of judges.
Just Desserts’ Pear and Almond Franzipan tart is hand crafted at the family run West Yorkshire bakery and is made with butter pastry, strawberry jam, covered with franzipan mixture and finished with glazed pears. Part of the bakery’s downsized desserts range introduced in 2013, the tart also won 1-star Great Taste Award in 2013, so it’s quality has improved even further with a 2-star rating this year.
The new Yorkshire Moggy Parkin is a pudding served warm with custard or ice cream and is based on an old regional recipe. It’s similar to traditional Parkin, but oatmeal is replaced by flour for a lighter tasting dessert.
James O’Dwyer, managing director, Just Desserts said “It’s not the first year we have scooped Great Taste Awards, but each win is another triumph and testament to the high quality of our handmade desserts. We pride ourselves on creating the very best products for our foodservice and hospitality customers and these accolades are to speciality food what Michelin is to fine dining and certainly open doors for us.
“I’m so proud of our bakery team, they are absolutely passionate about every product we produce and it shows in the finished results. This is an acknowledged benchmark for speciality food and drink and displaying the Great Taste Awards logo is the sign that customers are buying food they can trust and helps us to differentiate our product from the norm,” continued James O’Dwyer.
Recognised as a stamp of excellence among consumers and retailers alike, Great Taste values taste above all else, with no regard for branding and packaging. Whether it is bread, honey, salami or cereal being judged, all products are removed from their wrapper, jar, box or bottle before being tasted. The judges then savour, confer and re-taste to decide which products are worthy of a 1-, 2- or 3-star award.
There were 10,000 Great Taste entries this year and of those products, 141 have been awarded a 3-star, 878 received a 2-star and 2,520 were awarded a 1-star accolade. The panel of judges included; TV chef and author, Valentine Warner, MasterChef judge and restaurant critic, Charles Campion, fifth generation baker, Tom Herbert from Hobbs House Bakery, and Great British Bake Off winner, Frances Quinn; food buyers from Harrods, Selfridges, Fortnum & Mason, Harvey Nichols and Waitrose and chefs including, James Golding, chef director of THE PIG Hotels, and Kevin Gratton, chef director of HIX Restaurants. These esteemed palates have together tasted and re-judged the 3-star winners to finally agree on the 2016 Top 50 Foods, the Golden Fork Trophy winners and the 2016 Supreme Champion.
Great Taste 2016 will reach its exciting finale on Monday 5 September, when the world of fine food gathers at the Royal Garden Hotel in London to find out the Golden Fork winners for each region at an Awards Dinner, with the final applause reserved for the Great Taste Supreme Champion 2016.