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, held its grand finale for 2022 earlier this week.

Announced at the Great Taste Golden Forks ceremony held at Southwark Cathedral, the Great Taste Golden Fork trophy for Northern Ireland was awarded to Baronscourt Estate from Tyrone for its Wild Sika Venison Loin, described as having “flavours of game and natural sweetness which balance beautifully and sing out” and “a rich red colour”.

The Wild Sika Venison Loin comes from wild sika deer that roam Northern Ireland’s Baronscourt Estate.

Impressing the Great Taste judges with its “bold aroma which was followed by bold flavour”, the Wild Sika Venison Loin 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 Northern Ireland, this “rich and tender” loin 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.”

The Great Taste Golden Fork from Northern Ireland was sponsored by Invest NI. Also nominated this year were the Great Taste 3-star Corndale Chorizo Picante from Corndale Charcuterie based in Londonderry and The Single Rose, Ballylisk of Armagh Farmhouse Brie from Ballylisk Dairies based in Armagh.

The post Wild Venison wins Great Taste Golden Fork award for Northern Ireland first appeared on Neighbourhood Retailer.

The cheese, produced in a small creamery in Portadown by Mark Wright and his team from milk sourced from the family’s multi-award winning dairy farm at Tandragee, is sold in delis and farm shops across Northern Ireland as well as the food hall at Fortnum and Mason in London.

The Virtual Cheese Award for the best in Northern Ireland is the latest in a host of endorsements for the Armagh cheese since the launch of the brand in 2016.

Mark, who set up the cheese business with late brother Dean, said: “We are thrilled to receive this important recognition which is a tremendous endorsement of the quality and taste of our Triple Rose cheese. The award will be enormously beneficial to our marketing endeavours as we seek to build further sales especially in Great Britain and the Republic, our most important external markets.”

Triple Rose is described by Mark as “a circular, white mould, single herd, full–flavoured cheese”.

“Its decadent richness is balanced by salty, lemony notes. It is made from pasteurised cow’s milk with added cream,” he said.

The initial Triple Rose cheese was developed by the company with help from the Food Technology Centre at the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise at Loughry, near Cookstown and was launched at the Balmoral Show in 2018, winning the ‘Best New Product’ award.

The soft, triple cream cheese also won two Gold Stars in the 2019 Great Taste Awards and was a finalist in the 2018 Great British Cheese Awards. It has also proved a winner with judges at the Blas na hEireann Awards, the Irish National Food Awards.

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