This week, over 2,300 artisan producers from the UK and across the globe have received their eagerly awaited results, and all-important judges' feedback, from Great Taste. After being blind-tasted by a team of over 500 judges, each producer has received invaluable feedback on their entries and found out if any of their products have scooped a prestigious 1-, 2-, or 3-star award in Great Taste; the highest global accolade based entirely on taste.

A truly international competition, Great Taste has a rigorous judging process, with comprehensive blind taste-testing of food and drink products from a staggering 110 different countries across the world, taking place over 90 days in both the Dorset and London judging venues, by a rotating panel of industry experts.

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. 2022's judging line-up included head buyers from Selfridges, Whole Foods, Fortnum & Mason and Waitrose, BBC Good Food editor Keith Kendrick, delicious. editor Karen Barnes, Bake Off contestant and author Chetna Makan, MasterChef Professionals finalist Santosh Shah, food and drink consultant Mallika Basu, BBC's Nigel Barden, national television presenters Lotte Duncan and Juliet Sear, restaurateurs Kavi Thakrar (Dishoom) and Amy Poon (Poon's), journalists including Felicity Cloake (The Guardian), Xanthe Clay (Telegraph) and Joanna Blythman (multiple national titles), as well food writers Gill Meller, Melissa Thompson, and Georgina Hayden among many others. This experienced panel, each with trusted palates, have together tasted and re-judged the 3-star winning products to crown the Golden Fork trophy winners as well as the Great Taste 2022 Supreme Champion.

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.

Who got the Great Taste 3-stars?

The highest rating is a Great Taste 3-star, which will have been sanctioned by over 20 expert palates, and this year just 241 products have been awarded this top accreditation. Of the 3-star winners, 138 are UK based and 103 from international producers, including chocolate from Australia, Sweden and USA, beer from Germany, Lebanese tahini, Cambodian pepper and cheeses from Croatia, Norway, Bulgaria, Italy and Spain, among many other interesting and innovative products.

Great Taste 3-star winners from the UK include:

• Hadley's Blackberry Ice Cream, a small-batch ice cream made with local blackberries which have been slowly cooked before being added to a custard base by Hadley's Dairy;
• Sea Salt with Saffron from the Pembrokeshire Sea Salt Co., which marries crumbly flakes of clean, pure, hand harvested sea salt with the vibrant colour, smoky aroma and floral flavours of saffron;
• Glasgow-based B Corp brewery, Brewgooder, for their “excellent and accomplished” Brewgooder session IPA, that maintains body and flavour whilst keeping to a low, highly accessible ABV;
• Wild Highland Venison Salami with Juniper, Smoked with Peat from Highland Charcuterie and Smoke House, made using local, foraged and wild ingredients in order to give a strong local identity to their charcuterie;
• The “broad and intriguing with marked herbal notes balanced by pepper flavour” Ivaar The Boneless gin by Exeter Gin Ltd.

Great Taste 3-star winners from across the world feature:

• A raw, unprocessed and unheated honey from the mountainous oak tree forests of Thessaly, said to have “a delicious evolution of flavour from rich to light” by Aphrodite in Greece;
• A natural smoked cured beef ham which is the first Cecina certified as "organic" on the market, Cecina de Le󮠂io Entrepe񡳬 by Entrepe񡳠s.l. in Spain;
• Lu Shan Yun Wu Green Tea, a “deeply pleasing tea” made of tender tea buds and leaves by TeaVivre Tea Company in China;
• A 73% double origin dark chocolate with Guatemalan fleur de sel flakes which “melts slowly to a smooth, velvety tang with a gentle acidity”, the Fleur de Sel, from Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate, USA.

What happens next?

Great Taste award-winners will now proudly display the iconic black and gold Great Taste logo on their award-winning products. The logo states the year and whether the product was awarded 1-, 2- or 3- stars.

Past winners have claimed that displaying a Great Taste sticker has increased sales by as much as 50%, as consumers from around the globe clamour to taste the best food and drink products each year.

Golden Fork ceremony

The fun doesn't stop here, for the award-winners it's only just the beginning as the highest scoring producers go through to the regional finals. The Golden Fork Awards celebrate the best from each region (the North East, South West, Scotland, Wales etc), with the winner of each region awarded a Golden Fork trophy – there are ten regional awards up for grabs. A further six Golden Fork trophies are given, including one for Best International Food and Drink and the Small Artisan Producer of the Year. Plus, there is an ultimate winner, an award for the best overall product in Great Taste 2022, aptly crowned The Supreme Champion.

All will be announced at the Great Taste Golden Fork Ceremony on Monday 5 September 2022, held at Southwark Cathedral, which sits on the south bank of the River Thames, next to Borough Market.

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.

The full list of this year's winners and where to buy them 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 across the country.

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For press enquiries, images, or interviews, contact Anna Holmes or Jo Rose at Sharp Relations on: Anna@sharprelations.com or Jo@sharprelations.com

Keep up to date on socials: @guildoffinefood #ISpyGreatTaste

Editor's notes:

Visit – https://gff.co.uk/ 

Established in 1994, Great Taste is organised by the Guild of Fine Food and is the world's largest, longest standing and most respected food accreditation scheme for artisan and speciality food and drink producers.

The Guild of Fine Food is a community of business owners sharing the same passion for good food & drink: formed for mutual support and protection to maintain standards through training and raising awareness of good food and drink. The Guild of Fine Food exists to support, protect, represent, and raise awareness of all good independent food and drink businesses, at a local, national, international, and governmental level: Building a supportive and informative community of producers, retailers and food lovers who protect standards and champion well-made food & drink.

14,205 different products were entered in 2022 from 110 countries. 4,078 were awarded a Great Taste 1-star – 'food and drink that delivers fantastic flavour'. 1,237 were awarded a Great Taste 2-star – 'above and beyond delicious', and 241 were awarded a Great Taste 3-star – 'extraordinarily tasty food and drink.'

High-res images are available upon request from the Sharp Relations team.