Foods Matter Free-From Food Awards 2009 Presentation Speech Hello to everyone and welcome to Hampstead’s own mini stately home and to the presentation of second FreeFrom Food Awards. It is fantastic to see so many of you here again - many of you I know coming from far, far away…. Before we move swiftly on to what you are all are for – just a few things I would like to cover. First of all – thanks – Huge thanks to Paddy Cronin and Livwell who have been the most generous and charming sponsors of this year’s awards. Livwell, as most of you will know, manufacture gluten free baked goods on prescription, on contract for every major UK supermarket and for the Livwell brand. They are also now part of the Finsbury Group - major players in the larger food industry. So we were particularly pleased when they offered to sponsor the awards because we felt that their involvement demonstrates clearly how far ‘freefrom’ has come in establishing a place for itself as a significant, even mainstream, sector in food industry. Huge thanks also to our judges – both our monthly (indeed, these days, almost two weekly) tasting panels and to our panel of expert judges (many of who are here tonight) who picked the final winners. And thank you again to the Foundation for Allergy Information Research who commissioned the sculptor Tom Allan, to create out very fine FAIR trophy – irreverently known, I am afraid as Marble Mo – who now has two names on that little silver plaque at the back – discreetly hidden under his bow! As far as this evening is concerned – Many thanks to Antony – whose restaurants we have alas, outgrown, but who has none the less come along tonight to present the awards for us – Many thanks to Sainsbury’s for providing us with these delightful pink sparkles and many thanks to Burgh House and to Fiona of Leafi Kitchens and her staff for providing us with such a delightful venue – and such delicious food! Extra thanks also to Livwell and to Sainsbury’s for the bags of goodies waiting for you to take away with you. They were meant to be packed in trendy, stylish and very eco friendly Livwell tote bags - but I fear that these fine examples of the bag makers art are currently still sitting on the tarmac at Budapest airport - so you will be going away with your goodies in some very unpolitically correct, eco-disastrous white placcy bags, courtesy of the fruit and veg shop in Belsize park! But I am sure that if you apply to Paddy he will forward you a tote bag when they get here! Awards Now just a couple of words about the awards themselves – as they are quite different from most of the other awards that you may have been involved in. The FreeFrom Food awards are based on the findings of the regular tasting panels that we run to give readers of the magazine as complete a report as possible on the freefrom products that are on the market. Although you will probably know that your product has been included in a tasting and may well have sent in a sample, we also often also include products which we have just bought in a local shop or on line. This means that our findings, and the awards, do genuinely assess the best products on the market – not just the products that have been entered for the awards. We divide the tastings into categories so as to include as many types of food as we can but inevitably, there will be products that do not fit into any category or which are launched after that particular tasting has taken place, and for them we have our Innovation Award. As you will notice, because of the huge growth in the number of products, we increased the number of categories this year and will no doubt again in 2010. However there are two entirely new categories that we will be adding for next year’s awards – alcoholic drinks (we already have a waiting list of those who are offering to taste this one!) – and a ‘Reader’s favourite’ category - chosen from submissions made by Foods’ Matter readers over the next year. So, finally – to this year’s awards. As last year we have awarded winners, highly commended and commended in each category. Because of the number of products who have got commended or highly commended certificates, Antony will only be presenting the certificates to the winners tonight – all the others are already in the post and may well hit your desks before you do tomorrow! So, to start at the beginning of the day with a new category – Breakfast cereals Finally crunching tasters opted for commending the Eat Natural Toasted Buckwheat with Pumpkin Seeds, raisins and mango (a good representative the lots of ingredient cereals) and highly commending the Whole Earth Organic Cornflakes – ‘crispy golden flakes – good crunch - texture just right - really tasty’. But they gave the winning slot to Barkat’s Organic Chocolate Rice Crunchies – as an excellent, simple but well made product which would appeal to the children at whom it was directed – as well as quite a few parents!
On to breads and bread mixes So – who won what! We gave four commended certificates here – three to mixes, Mrs Crimble’s bread mix, the Glutafin multi-purpose white mix and Roley’s teff flour mix (the winner of last year’s trophy) and to the Juvela sliced white bread. We gave three highly commended certificates: one to Juvela’s all-purpose mix (‘now that IS bread’ one taster commented), one to Sainsbury’s freefrom ciabatta (‘good chewy texture’ – ‘excellent flavour’) and one to Droppa and Droppa’s very attractive looking mixed seed loaf (‘nice nutty flavour’ ‘whole seeds visually exciting’,’good straight up bread flavour’ were some of the comments.) The winner, however, was the one bread which was wheat, gluten and dairy free and which, even though they suggested refreshing it, you could take straight out of the packet and make into a sandwich ‘Excellent’ ‘Texture holds together well’, ‘absolutely perfect for sandwiches’, mmm - moreish’ were among the tasters’ comments. It was the Spanish Proceli Complet or brown rice sliced loaf.
Pasta, pizza and pizza bases. This is another category in which things have improved dramatically over the years. No more claggy messes stuck to the bottom of the saucepan masquerading as spaghetti – now, when dressed in a good sauce, you would be hard put to know that many of the many gluten/wheat free pastas on the market were gluten free at all. It was in the hopes of encouraging more entries in this sector that we gave commended certificates to Sainsbury’s free-from beef lasagne and the Dietary Specials rigatoni with Mediterranean vegetables – both excellent ‘telly food’ tasters felt - along with three dried pastas, the Glutafin penne, the Rizopia organic brown rice penne (tasters were slightly put off by the slightly ‘wormy’ look of this pasta but loved the strong wholemealy taste) and the Orgran rice and millet pasta – both of the latter would be excellent for those who cannot tolerate corn as well as gluten/wheat. Highly commended in this category went to two pizza bases – one for thin and crusty enthusiasts and one the deep dish lovers! The thin and crusty was the Barkat white rice pizza crust (‘nice buttery taste’ although it is in fact dairy free, ‘crunchy outside but nicely gooey inside’, ‘melba toast like’ were the comments); the deep dish was the Antoinette Savill base (‘lovely deep, thick pan layer’ foccaccia like’ were comments.) However for the winner we went back to a pasta – the Dietary Specials corn and rice penne – ‘very nice flavour’, ‘a light summer salad, ‘like its thinness’ - ‘a hint of Tuscany’ from one poetic taster! Unfortunately, at the last minute Rachel Telford who was going to be with us to represent Glutafin, Trufree and Dietary Specials was unable to come – so we will move rapidly on to:
Gluten free pies, flans, sausages and sauces. This is a rather bizarre combination of products to end up in one category but we sort of did not have anywhere else to put them…. There were several excellent entries in all three sub groups – and what joy it is to those on gluten free diets to be able to lay their teeth into a decent pie and a decent sausage once again. In fact, since we held this tasting a number of other excellent new pies have been launched – the Brumby’s savoury pies from Gluten Free Foods Direct and the Mrs Crimble’s Apple and Rhubarb pies to mention but two – but even without them we found ourselves giving commended certificates to two of the pie entries, the Clive’s Organic vegetable chilli pie (‘classic chilli in a pie’) and the Dietary Specials Steak Pie (‘a very good steak pie’, ‘ great beef taste’, ’rich jelly’). A commended certificate also went to the Sauces of Choice black cherry and kirsch sauce (‘be equally great with duck, lamb or pork – or ice cream…!’). Sausages and a Spanish tart won highly commended certificates – specifically the Richard Woodall Cumberland unsmoked pork sausages (‘good meaty texture and depth of flavour’) and the Waitrose pork sausages (‘lovely quality sausage’) and the Droppa and Droppa Spanish tart whose ‘firm crunchy pastry’ went down particularly well. However, the winner in this category was a sauce – a sauce which already has a whole string of awards to its name, in fact. Free of absolutely every allergen with a ‘lovely deep fruity flavour’, ‘deliciously coconutty’, ‘very challenging with a late bite’ – it is Anila’s spicey korma curry sauce.
Savoury snacks and biscuits. A tricky category this as, if we were to have included the whole range of, say, rice cakes, we could still be tasting. We therefore restricted ourselves to just one flavour of rice cake from each manufacturer along with one flavour or oatcake from each oatcake manufacturer. We also banned savoury snacks such a potato, corn and vegetable crisps on the grounds that they should, by definition be both dairy and gluten free – although sadly a number of crisp manufacturers now add dairy and lactose to their formulations… Anyhow, out of the biscuits and snacks that we did allow in – we had three commended products – the Tesco Freefrom cheese crackers (‘look great’, ‘nice gentle flavour’, ‘nice on their own’), the Village Bakery organic oatcakes (‘traditional rough texture’, good oaty flavour’) and the Nairn’s cheese oat bakes – little mini oatcakes (‘crispy and slim’, ‘flavour grows pleasantly’). High commended were one of the rice cakes that did win through – the Clearsping organic multi grain crackers (‘crisp, nice mouthfeel’, ’lovely savoury tang’, ‘moreish’) and the Barkat plain pretzels (‘frankly gorgeous’, ‘nicely toasted flavour’, ‘spot on’, ‘could eat a lot of these’). Since pretzels appear to be one of those foods that you either love or loathe, the Barkat pretzels are a great treat for coeliac pretzel lovers! However, the winner in this category was a new product which just made it onto the market in time for the tasting! ‘Yum’, ‘floaty light and very moreish’, ‘cheesy-crunchy’, ‘delicious’ were among the comments – about – Mrs Crimbles Original Cheese Bites. It also came to our ear that not only was Jeremy winning a category tonight but he was celebrating something else……
Back to business Cakes, muffins and sweet biscuits But meanwhile we finally chose four products to commend – the Crayve’s apple and cinnamon muffin mix (‘very interesting texture and flavour’), the Pure Flavour Lemon Drizzle mini cakes (‘moist and tangy’), the Tesco chocolate muffins (‘good crunchy top and decent chocolate flavour’) and the Lovemore FreeFrom Chocolate chip cookies (‘crisp and traditional – excellent crunch’). Chocolate muffins also got into the Highly Commended category – but this time the new Waitrose own label muffins (‘very good, moist and with excellent chocolate chunks’). Other highly commendeds were the Glutafin Digestive Biscuits (‘tastes like a digestive biscuit should’), the Free to Enjoy Indulgent Biscuit Deelights, praised by tasters as offering a genuinely attractive alternative biscuit selection to those on gluten-free diets - and the really excellent Lazy Day Foods Chocolate gingers – a delicious crunchy ginger biscuit half coated in excellent dark chocolate. The winner in this category was however hard to choose – indeed we ended up with somewhat of a set two between two carrot cakes! The Gluten Free Kitchen’s Luxury Carrot cake (‘absolutely delicious’, ‘lovely and spicy’, ‘beautiful colour’) and the Healthy Cake Company’s Organic Carrot and Raisin cake (‘delicious’, ‘lovely moist texture’, ‘just the right degree of sweetness’,’ really good icing’). Finally, to avoid the risk of carrots at dawn, we decided to on joint winners – so the winners of the Cakes, Muffins and Sweet Biscuits are The Gluten Free Kitchen’s Luxury Carrot and the Healthy Cake Company’s Organic Carrot and Raisin cake. Staying with sweet goodies – on to chocolate and cereal bars. Four products qualified for a commended certificate – The BoojaBooja ginger wine truffles – adored by some tasters but altogether too much for some others, the D&D dark couverture Easter egg (a classic, not too sweet Belgian chocolate Easter egg), the Sainsbury’s mint crisps (‘a real posh after dinner mint’) and the It’s Nut Free fudge flapjack – ‘buttery and oaty – a good home made flapjack’. Two cereal bars and an Easter egg made it to the rank of highly commended – the Village Bakery Pumpkin seed and cranberry bar (‘looks beautiful and full of goodies’, ‘interesting textures’ were among the comments); the Eat Natural Brazil, sultana, almond and hazelnut bars (‘tastier than George Clooney’ was the comment of one besotted taster, ‘very nutty and purposeful’ that of another taster) and the Kinnerton luxury dark chocolate egg (‘good quality snap to it’, ‘yummy good rich flavour’ were among the comments.) However, the winner of this section was a mere humble chocolate bar – but an extremely delicious chocolate bar. Free from all the major allergens, organic, made in a nut free environment and in a factory powered entirely by renewable energy – and it really does taste seriously delicious! For those who have not guessed it, the winner of the chocolate and cereal bar category is Plamils’ Organic Orange chocolate with Cranberries.
So on to the last of the ‘indulgence’ products – Christmas goodies. Without wishing to minimise the skills involved, Christmas cake and Christmas puddings are among the less taxing products to create gluten and/or dairy free as there is so much fruit involved in both that the flour/gluten element is relatively secondary – but this is not of course the case with mince pies. So congratulations to those manufacturers who managed to come up with mince pies which not only tasted good but actually held together! Two of these, the Lovemore FreeFrom mince pies and the Pure Flavour mince pies were amongst these and get a Commended certificate for their efforts. Also commended were the Livwell Iced Christmas cake and the Barkat Christmas pudding. Tesco scored with both their Christmas pudding (‘That is the proper taste’ and ‘good stodgy texture and nice flavour’ were the comments of true pud lovers) and with their mince pies (‘Delicious crumbly, crisp pastry’, ‘beautifully spiced’, ‘effective pasty to filling ratio’) and both got Highly Commended certificates. Also highly commended were two cakes - the Gluten Free Kitchen Christmas cake (‘nicely rounded flavours’, ‘excellent icing and outstanding marzipan’, ‘real Christmas cake’) and the Village Bakery organic Christmas cake (‘moist, rich flavour’, ‘gentle flavour, good taste, like the cinnamon notes’). And indeed it was a cake which finally came out top of the Christmas pile – but this time a mini cake! ‘Mmmm – treacely and molasses’, ‘excellent cake – nice tang to it’, ’traditional – good flavour’, ‘love the marzipan’… It was the Especially Delicious Mini Christmas cake.
Now back to more plebian – but, realistically, far more essential, categories. First up: Both this and the following category, dairy-free butter cheese and spread – are really difficult to judge because they include such hugely diverse products many of which – - the soya products – are attempting to ape traditional foods such as milk, cream, butter and cheese even though the Good Lord never designed a soya bean to taste anything remotely like the produce of a cow. For many years this was all too evident in the products but it is a tribute to the food manufacturers’ art that many of the soya products you can buy today not only taste perfectly pleasant in their own right – but even bear a passing resemblance to the animal milk products that they have been designed to replace. Our tasters tried hard to judge each product on its individual merits. In the first of these categories, in which there were far fewer entries than in some of the baked goods categories, they award one commended certificate – to the Provamel Fruit of the Forest yogurt (‘subtle flavour and lovely texture’) – and two Highly Commended – to the new Lactofree virtually lactose free cow’s milk strawberry yogurt (’rather delicious’, ‘really lovely texture and taste’) and to Sainsbury’s sweetened fresh soya drink (‘smooth’, ‘creamy’, ‘good balance and texture’). Unfortunately for us – but not for her – Nicki Clowes the Tesco Freefrom buyer left for Catalonia on Sunday – so we will be sending on their certificate….
The same judging problems arise with the next dairy free category – the butters, spread and cheese where the difficulty of persuading a soya bean to taste like a mature cheddar are effectively insurmountable. So, having worked their way through some extremely tasty goat and sheep milk cheeses and butters as well as the soya products our tasters’ final decision went as follows: They awarded commended certificates to the delicate and delicious Woodland’s Park Goat Butter and to the Redwood Cheezly Mozzarella style which they noted was ‘nutty and sweet’ and ‘toasted surprisingly well’. Highly commended certificates went to the excellent Pure soya spread, the staple of so much dairy free baking and to the excellent Delamere Dairy hard goat cheese – ‘delicious’, ‘lightly flavoured’, ‘firm and strong’, ‘lovely goat flavour’. The winning certificate, though, they reserved for a soya cheese – a reward they felt for achieving a very useable, useful and enjoyable product out of somewhat unpromising raw materials – ‘delicious’, ‘smooth creamy texture’, ‘good solid consistency’, ‘slightly salty and sweet’,’ clean white appearance’. The winner was the Tofutti Creamy Smooth Original.
Now on to the third of the primarily dairy free categories – the ‘ice creams’ (although I know we should not call them that) puddings and desserts - which also ended up by being a rather crowded category. To accommodate its size tasters got rather carried away with themselves and positively sprayed certificates around…. Commended awards went to Almondy’s very delicious frozen almond tarts from Sweden, Alpro’s long life vanilla custard (‘a classic custard’), BoojaBooja’s wonderful chocolate Stuff in A Tub chocolate cashew ice cream and to the Tofutti Chocolate Cuties - ice cream sandwiched between two chocolate biscuits which our younger ice cream tasters just loved. Tasters also gave commended awards to Christine’s Sticky Toffee Pudding (which was indeed just yummily that), GFree’s apple and mincemeat tray – an open flan laden with mincemeat, the OK Chocolate sponge and the Sainsbury’s free from syrup pudding. To be honest I am surprised they could even move after tasting all of those! Highly commended certificates went to one more yummy classic pudding, the Gluten Free Kitchen’s bread and butter pudding, and two ice creams. The B’Nice strawberry iced cream, a great rice based frozen product for those who are soya intolerant as well as dairy. Tasters loved its ‘fresh fruit flavour’ and that it was rich and creamy but not too sweet. The other ice which blew them away was the BoojaBooja Stuff in a Tub Maple and pecan – ‘a haven of nuttiness’, ‘lovely nut pieces in good creamy base’, ‘rich and yummy’. However, as a winner they chose a product which, while not attempting to scale any great gastronomic heights, was doing precisely what food allergic people ask of a free-from product – providing a freefrom lookalike for a ’normal’ product which really does, effectively, look and taste the same – in this case, a humble choc ice – the Swedish Glacé vanilla lollies.
So ever onward and upward – and you will be glad to hear that there are only two to go before we can reveal Marble Mo’s home for the next year!!
First of the two is products manufactured in a nut-free environment. Huge strides have been made over the last year in nut awareness and whereas last year only It’s Nut Free and Kinnerton even qualified for the category, this year we have no less than thirteen companies who manufacture products in which nuts or nut traces would be expected to be found (chocolate, breads, cakes, ice creams etc) but whose products are manufactured in an entirely nut free environment. Out of a very diverse collection the judges chose two products to commend - the Barkat Matzo crackers (‘a really tasty Matzo cracker’) and the really delicious Chilly Billy Apple and Raspberry iced lollies. Although this is not technically a ‘free-from’ product in that lollies are by nature dairy free it is good for the parents of nut allergic children to know that they can eat them in complete safety. Highly commended were the It’s Nut Free chewy oat and raisin cereal (‘deliciously oaty’, ‘excellent savoury/sweet flavour combo’), the Kinnerton Luxury dark chocolate egg, and Orgran’s Vanilla Cake Mix (‘excellent sponge’, ‘home made texture’ , ‘moist and pleasant’). Top spot however went, again, to that chocolate bar…. The winner was the Plamil organic orange chocolate with cranberries.
So now to the Innovation Award. We had so many excellent new products sent in to us this year to try that this was a really hard category to judge – as we would really like to have given about fifteen awards! Gluten-free pastry has been particularly popular this year - Mrs Crimble’s and Orgran have both brought out very good new pastry mixes, the Gluten Free Kitchen is now offering a ready made frozen pastry for you to cook yourself while Tarte Maison will sell you excellent little ready cooked frozen tart shells. Meanwhile Gluten Free Foods Direct have launched their very tasty frozen Yorkshire Brumby’s savoury pies and Mrs Crimble’s have come up with some extremely delicious frozen sweet pies, apple and rhubarb, and both Almondy and Mamma Cucina are offering flans or cheesecakes with gluten-free bases. There have also been several new spreads and it is one of them that gets our commended certificate – the new Lactofree soft white cheese spread. After many years of just producing a UHT lactose reduced milk it is great that Lactofree are at last expanding their offering to lactose intolerants with fresh milks (last year) and now yogurts and cheeses. Their soft cream cheese spread we thought was particularly good – deliciously creamy and mild without being tasteless. There were also a number of new pastas. The Organico organic rice pasta and the Orgran multi grain amaranth pasta found particular favour but it was the Bob the Builder corn and rice pasta that won our Highly Commended award. The pasta is organic and tasty and holds its shape well enough for its diggers, tractors , lorries and indeed Bob himself to be entirely recognisable when they arrive on your child’s plate! So – what was the innovative product of the year? Well, which is the free from product which has exercised manufacturers most over the years and proved the hardest to crack? Yes – I hear you all cry – bread….. Some manufacturers have been more successful than others but although there are many perfectly acceptable gluten-free loaves on the market, none of them could really be called a like-for-like substitute for a ’normal’ loaf of bread. But now we have one… Made from a combination of potato, corn, tapioca and brown rice flour with egg white, rice bran and yeast this loaf does, as the judges said, ‘look like a normal loaf, cut like a normal loaf, has good both crumb and crust and a pleasant 'real bread' flavour.’ Moreover, it does not need any refreshing and is still fresh enough to eat four days later! The bread is the just-launched Genius white bread loaf.
OK – so the moment you have all been waiting for…… Who gets to walk off with Marble MO?.... The judges had to choose between the winners of the thirteen categories – an extremely diverse group of products which included everything from curry sauce to ice cream. But after a hard fought battle which saw pasta pitched against cheese bites and curry sauce jousting with chocolate, it was those carrot cakes which came out on top once more. Both were free of gluten and dairy – both, for a cake, had reasonable nutritional profiles - while neither was particularly cheap, neither was ridiculously expensive - and although both had their particular supporters all agreed that the texture and flavour of both was excellent…… I am afraid to say that, at the end of the day, it was the looks that did it. With its particularly delicious icing and its attractive pecan and crushed nut decoration, the winning cake is The Healthy Cake Company’s Organic Carrot and Raisin Cake.
If you have any queries or would like to talk to us about the project - please contact: Laura or Michelle on 020 7722 2866 laura@foodsmatter.com michelle@foodsmatter.com |
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