Local Enterprise Office Carlow are delighted to announce that we’ll be sponsoring Best in County Carlow and Best in Farmers Market Carlow at Blas na hEireann, The Irish Food Awards in Dingle, Kerry, this year.
Now in its 8th year, Blas na hEireann, The Irish Food Awards are the biggest competition for quality Irish produce on the island of Ireland. It was set up to support the best of Irish produce and the passionate, talented producers behind it. Last year over 2,000 Irish products were entered into the competition to win Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards in over 90 food and drink categories as well as key awards such as Supreme Champion and Best Artisan Producer.
Award winners get to display the Blas na hEireann symbol on their products. Research shows that consumers are more likely to buy a product that has an award winning sticker on the label such the Blas na hEireann Award. All entries are blind tasted by a team of over 350 judges including top celebrity chefs, journalists and industry experts. The judging system was developed and is overseen each year by the School of Food and Nutritional Science at UCC.
Clóna Dairy Products from Cork. Received a Gold and Silver Award at Blas na hEireann 2014.
In addition Bord Bia sponsors two key awards, The Blas na hEireann Supreme Champion and the Best Artisan producer. For the first time this year there is the opportunity to win Best in County Carlow and Best in Farmers Market Carlow.
Kieran Comerford, Head of Enterprise at LEO Carlow said; “We are delighted to team up with Blas na hEireann this year to recognise and reward the best producers in Carlow! It’s a great opportunity for local businesses to be a part of the biggest competition of quality Irish produce in Ireland. We are lucky to have a dedicated group of food and drink producers who are making great efforts of putting Carlow on the Irish food map. While consumers look for value, they still want to support local producers because of their assured quality, traceability and to support local jobs within the community. A Blas na hEireann symbol on a Carlow product will be a great boost for the producer and for the County!”
Local Enterprise Office Carlow offers a wide range of supports to Food businesses in County Carlow to assist business owners in developing their business to its full potential. From Financial assistance, business training programmes and seminars and a mentoring service which provides specialist business advisors to work with you on a one to one basis. All supports are available to new and existing businesses.
Recently the Local Enterprise Offices of Carlow and Kildare launched the Food Academy Start Programme, the programme is aimed at supporting and nurturing start-up and developing food businesses. Board Bia, SuperValu and the LEOs of Carlow and Kildare joined forces to provide a food marketing programme to new and early stage food business owners. The programme is a combination of three workshops and one to one mentoring over a three month period, March-May 2015, delivered by food marketing experts and is designed to guide companies from start-up to their first retail listing. The training workshops and mentoring, builds to producers being prepared for the opportunity to pitch to local SuperValu retail representative at the end of programme.
Entry for Blas na hEireann are now open until 17th of June at a fee of €55 per entry. To enter online and find more details on the rules and categories you can visit www.irishfoodawards.com or contact the Blas team on info@irishfoodawards.com
