Celebrating artisan, farm-based food producers
The guild’s annual awards are now in their sixteenth year and are a celebration of exceptionally good Irish produced foods.
Our winners this year are artisan farm-based food producers and many have won international awards and recognition. In these difficult times an increasing number of farmers have decided to produce food on the farm so that the farm family can survive. The guild recognises that as a food producing nation the export of large quantities of generic foods is crucial to the economy.
However, we believe it is the outstanding quality of Irish speciality foods made by artisan and small food producers that attracts consumers and enhances Ireland’s reputation far more than is acknowledged. We wish that the state offered more encouragement and practical support to our creative and hardworking artisan food producers who do so much to promote Ireland as the “clean, green food island”.
About the Winners
Moonshine Organic Milk: Food Award
Today’s award winning product Moonshine Organic Milk is a result of their passion for milk that is not de-natured and tastes real. It’s not homogenised and is pasteurised gently and slowly before cooling naturally; no additives are used and the carbon footprint from cow to food production unit is about ten yards. Click here to view recipes featuring Moonshine Organic Milk.
Knockdrinna Farmhouse Cheese: Food Award
Helen Finnegan highly regarded as a farm cheesemaker producing a variety of cheeses. It was in response to consumer demand that she began making today’s award winner Knockdrinna Farmhouse Sheeps Cheese. Click here to view recipe featuring Knockdrinna Cheese.
Fermanagh Free Range Chicken: Food Award
Kettyle Irish Foods, an innovative food company producing a variety of speciality food products developed out of the 500 acre family farm in Co Fermanagh which mainly reared beef for export to Europe and beyond. Click here to view recipe featuring Fermanagh Free Range Chicken.
Joe and Eileen Condon: Environmental Award
This award goes to Joe and Eileen Condon who farm close to the Knockmealdown mountains in Co. Tipperary. Here they produce beef, from mountain to marketplace, using farming methods that are a model of sustainability.
Nicky McLoughlin: Lifetime Achievement Award
The guild’s lifetime achievement award is an occasional one. Today we honour Nicky McLoughlin – for a half a century the lynchpin of Nicky’s Plaice, a fabulous fishmongers on Howth Pier. Click here to view recipe featuring Nicky’s Plaice fish.