A farm shop in the Yorkshire Dales are celebrating after winning the top accolade at the British Charcuterie Awards.
Town End Farm Shop, based at Airton near Skipton were awarded the top honour for their home produced Longhorn Beef Bresaola at the prestigious industry awards.
Fifth generation butcher, grazier and charcutier Chris Wildman who runs Town End said: “We’re incredibly proud to win this award that showcases our home reared Longhorn cattle and the finished cured product. The awards include some fabulous innovative products from our fellow butchers and charcutiers in this growing industry so it’s an honour to take home the top spot.”
Of the winning product the judges commented on its: “lovely dark colour and uniformed slices, with great aroma which was matched by the taste – a great choice of species bringing the beef taste forward.”
Sponsored by the Worshipful Company of Butchers, the overall Champion of Champions Product award recognises the best scoring products achieving Gold (scoring 90+ points out of a possible 100).
The awards, which were postponed from last year had to change the judging process to allow the competition to continue with blind judging taking place remotely throughout the country by small teams of experts. Each product was assessed against a number of criteria including taste, mouth feel, appearance and presentation with judging panel led by new head judge Keith Fisher, Chief Executive of the Institute of Meat,
Henrietta Green, founder of the Awards, said: “In spite of the challenges British producers are undergoing as a result of the pandemic, over 100 businesses entered more than 300 products into the nine classes and our judges were struck by the exceptional quality and range of the entries.
Bresaola is a marinated and air dried salted beef cold cut, usually from the topside, ideal on a charcuterie & cheese board. Henrietta continues: “It’s so encouraging to see more and more producers starting to make both British and Continental style Charcuterie and it’s certainly becoming a truly vibrant sector of British food production.”
For more information and to buy their award winning range of products online visit www.townendfarmshop.co.uk