Food & Drink Devon Award winners announced

The best of Devon’s food and drink producers, hospitality and catering businesses and speciality retailers joined together in eager anticipation for the announcement of this year’s Food & Drink Devon Award winners.

The ceremony took place on Monday 5th October at Exeter Golf and Country Club and was hosted by food and drink broadcaster and BBC Radio 2's one and only Nigel Barden. This year’s highly esteemed award ‘Best Producer’ was presented to Dartmoor Farmers.

The impressive Prince Hall Hotel near Two Bridges on Dartmoor won the highly sought after ‘Best Fine Dining Restaurant’ after judges noted their exceptional local sourcing, impressive presentation and perfectly executed flavours.

From the 41 ‘Hospitality’ entries, winners of the other seven categories included Two Coast County who were victorious in the ‘Best Take Away’ category, A la Ronde in Exmouth who triumphantly won the ‘Best Café’ category and The Elizabethan, Luton who were proud winners of the ‘Best Pub’ category.

Other ‘Hospitality’ winners were Pig on the Hill, Bideford who took home the highly sought after ‘Best Gastro Pub’ award, The Cove Café Bar, Hope Cove who had the honour of the ‘Best Bistro’ accolade, Broomhill Arts Hotel winners of the ‘Best Hotel Restaurant’ and The Crab Shed, Salcombe who won ‘Best Restaurant’.

The ‘Best Retailer’ award went to G.T. Orsman, whilst the ‘Best Online Retailer’ was awarded to The Well Hung Meat Company.

Commenting on the Awards ceremony, Nigel, who specialises in promoting British ingredients and artisan producers, says: “It has been a real privilege to present the Food & Drink Devon Awards and be a part of celebrating Devon’s food and drink industry. Devon is highly regarded nationwide for it's fabulous food and drink, and this has been clearly evident throughout the Awards’ ceremony. It’s also marvellous that many visitors are attracted to the county on a culinary pilgrimage.”

Barbara King, from the board of Food & Drink Devon comments: "It was fantastic to see so many innovative Devon food and drink producers and hospitality and retail establishments celebrating at the Food & Drink Devon Awards. The Awards are now in their fifth year and have gone from strength to strength. This year we have seen the widest variety yet of entrants from all over the county, with the highest number of award winners to date.” Barbara continues: “All of us at Food & Drink Devon would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the winners for their superb achievements and thank Exeter Golf and Country Club and all of the sponsors for their support.”

South Milton’s Bell & Loxton fought off entries from 24 other producers to claim the ‘Best Packaging’ award for their seriously smart and immensely designed silver bottles of Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil. Close runners up were Devon Distillery’s DAPPA and Bays Brewery.

During the judging of the 31 producers on the shortlist there were four particular products which really stood out amongst the crowd. Bulleigh Elms Farm for their Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt Fudge, Clare’s Preserves for their Mulled Cranberry Jelly, Chunk of Devon for their Chicken and Chorizo Pasty and Dartmoor Farmers for their 10oz Sirloin Steak all received a flawless 100% score and were awarded Platinum awards.

To win a ‘Gold’ Award, products had to score an almost faultless 91% to 99% and Silvers were only given out to those scoring 85% - 90%. Only 36 products won a ‘Gold’ and 32 a ‘Silver’.

During the black tie evening, guests enjoyed a welcome reception with Luscombe Drinks, Lyme Bay Winery and Bays Brewery drinks served, a three-course meal created from food and drink produced by Food & Drink Devon members, and a raffle and auction.

Food & Drink Devon works tirelessly to increase the county’s profile, both nationally and internationally. Food & Drink Devon - 'Love the Flavour' represents a membership of like-minded businesses, dedicated to providing good quality local food and drink. The Food & Drink Devon association is committed to continuously achieving its mission – to make ‘Love the Flavour’ a nationally recognised brand for outstanding sustainable food and drink.

A special thank you goes to the proud sponsors of the Food & Drink Devon Awards including exclusive media sponsor taste buds, Hedgerow Print, Luscombe Drinks, The Venus Company, Stephens Scown Solicitors, BlinkBack, Warwick Events and Vu Online.

For more information on Food & Drink Devon please visit www.lovetheflavour.co.uk and follow @lovetheflavour on Twitter.