LONDON, UK – Following a record-breaking 14,205 food and drink entries from 110 countries across the world, Great Taste, the world’s largest food and drink accreditation scheme based entirely on taste, has reached its grand finale for 2022. Announced Monday night at the Great Taste Golden Forks ceremony held at Southwark Cathedral, the Great Taste Golden Fork trophy for Wales has been awarded to Bay Coffee Roasters from Ceredigion, for its Indonesian Sumatran Fairtrade Organic coffee beans, described as having aromas “redolent of the cedar veneer found in quality cigar tubes” and a “full bodied coffee with spice notes at the front”.
The Bay Coffee Roasters Indonesian Sumatran Fairtrade Organic is made using 100% environmentally friendly energy.
Impressing the Great Taste judges with its “gentle, sweet, spicy flavours which dance around the mouth and then come together in a balanced harmony that finishes with a sweet, slightly fermented linger”, the Indonesian Sumatran Fairtrade Organic made an impression at every stage of the blind-tasted judging process across the 90 days.
Rising to the top among hundreds of other entries from Wales, this “complex but wholly approachable” coffee was celebrated as the best tasting product in its region at the highly anticipated ceremony – the culmination of Great Taste – the largest and most trusted food and drink accreditation scheme on the planet – dubbed the ‘Oscars’ of the food & drink world and attended by food industry experts and influencers.
John Farrand, managing director at the Guild of Fine Food comments: “Unveiling the Great Taste Golden Fork winners is a huge honour. After months of rigorous blind-tasting and judging, it is fantastic to reveal the award-winning products and celebrate the producers’ hard work and innovation. It’s been an exceptional year for creativity and inspirational food and drink entries. Huge congratulations from all of us at GFF to all the award winners, it really isn’t easy to do what you do – I have the utmost admiration for you all. And thank you to everyone who was involved in Great Taste 2022.”
For more information on Bay Tree Roasters, see here: https://www.baycoffeeroasters.com/
The Great Taste Golden Fork from Wales was sponsored by Food and Drink Wales. Also nominated this year were the Great Taste 3-star Espresso Martini Ice Cream by Mario’s Luxury Dairy Ice Cream from Carmarthenshire and the Curried Goat Pattis from Tasty Bites @ Ionas Kitchen based in Gwent.
What is Great Taste?
Recognised as a stamp of excellence and actively sought out by food lovers and retailers alike, Great Taste, organised by the Guild of Fine Food, values taste above all else. All products in the line-up for judging are blind tasted: every product is removed from its packaging so it cannot be identified, before entering a robust, layered judging process. This year, the judging took place over 90 days across two judging locations (Dorset and London).
Great Taste’s prestigious judging panel is made up of over 500 food & drink professionals, including critics, chefs, recipe creators, buyers, retailers, journalists, broadcasters, and experts in the field. This experienced panel, each with trusted palates, have together tasted and re-judged the 3-star winning products to crown the Golden Forks trophy winners as well as the Great Taste 2022 Supreme Champion.
This year, food and drink products from 110 different countries were entered into the Great Taste accreditation scheme. Only 5,556 products – that’s 39.1% of the total products entered this year – received either a Great Taste 1-, 2- or 3-star award, and of the 2,344 winning companies, 27% are based outside of the UK.
The full list of this year’s winners can be found at www.greattasteawards.co.uk and a wide range of the award-winning products are available to buy in delis, farm shops and independent retail outlets.