Great Taste Awards 2013 – It’s all about taste!

How the time flies!  I can hardly believe that a week has already passed since the announcement of the 2013 Great Taste Award winners! 

At Tipple Tails HQ we’ve been celebrating! Imagine my excitement at being told that the Tipple Tails Cherry Orchard cake has wowed judges in Great Taste Awards 2013 by being awarded a coveted Gold Star in the world’s largest and most rigorous food awards scheme involving over 400 judges and thousands of hours of blind tasting.

 

Great Taste is the largest and most trusted accreditation scheme for speciality and fine food & drink. Established in 1994, it encourages and mentors artisan food producers, offering a unique benchmarking and product evaluation service leading to an independent accreditation that enables small food and drink businesses to compete against supermarket premium own label brands. A Great Taste Award is considered to be a Foodie Oscar!

Great Taste is simply about taste, not branding or packaging.  Judges are presented with, for example, a piece of cheese, a pie or a little dish of chutney, with no wrappings, jars or marks – and they taste, confer and re-taste before making the decision on whether a product should be a 1-, 2- or 3-star winner. 

Any food that a judging team believes is worthy of Great Taste stars is judged by at least two further teams. Only when there is a consensus will an award be given – that means at least 16 judges will have tasted and commented on the Tipple Tails cake!

Imagine the scene! Working in small teams, experts taste 25 foods in each sitting, discussing each product as a coordinating food writer transcribes their comments directly onto the Great Taste website which producers access after judging is completed.

To be awarded a Great Taste 3-star, every single judge attending the session, which can be as many as 40 experts must unanimously agree the food delivers that indescribable ‘wow’ factor. I am aiming to achieve 3-star status for all my lovely cakes so prepare your tastebuds for even more delicious cake!

Since 1994 over 80,000 products have been tasted, and this year alone, almost 10,000 products were blind-tasted by panels of specialists: top chefs, cookery writers, food critics, restaurateurs and fine food retailers.

The judges are looking for great texture and appearance. They judge the quality of ingredients and how well the maker has put the food or drink together. But above all, they are looking for truly great taste – what an accolade!