Today we have some exciting Great Taste Awards news to share with you!
Over the past 12 months, you have given us a generous amount of reviews and feedback about our Thai curry pastes and bundles. Describing how quick and easy it is to cook with and most importantly how authentic the flavours are! This year, we entered our most popular Thai curry pastes to be judged by a panel of industry experts and we are so excited to announce that Mae Jum has won 4 Great Taste Awards!!
OMG! That’s amazing but umm... What are the Great Taste Awards? (You may ask!)
The Great Taste awards, founded in 1994 and organised by the Guild of Fine Food, has become the world’s largest and most trusted food and drink award. Over 158,000 products have been judged in the last 27 years and being awarded a star(s) is widely acknowledged as the most respected food accreditation scheme for artisan and speciality food producers.
12,777 different food and drink products were entered in 2020 and products were sent in from 106 countries across the globe, including Japan, Greece, Italy, Madagascar, Singapore, the Philippines and the USA. A huge range of cuisines and flavours! Each product is blind-tasted by a team of judges who are dedicated to discovering the most exquisite tasting food and drink regardless of its packaging or branding.
Sounds exciting... How does the judging work?
All products are entered at the beginning of the year and judging took place over 14 weeks starting in March. 144 judges took part this year. Less than usual, due to the pandemic and new rules of social distancing at Guild HQ in Gillingham, Dorset and The Guild of Fine Food’s London Home, Southwark.
After a week of normal judging, the Guild of Fine Food needed to adapt its judging process to comply with the challenges of lockdown, and then social distancing. Nevertheless, each entry went through multiple layers of judging to generate a fair rating and constructive feedback. A new remote judging system was established in May, with products sent to small groups of judges, where they would work remotely from home and share their experiences over Zoom. In July, the judges were welcomed back by Great Taste to the Dorset and London judging rooms for the final few weeks of tasting.
The team of judges have very demanding palates and are spread across the industry. From food critics to chefs, restaurateurs to producers, journalists to social media influencers, retailer buyers to bakers. There really is someone from every sector. The judges blind-taste each entry without its branding or packaging. They are not only looking for great texture, appearance and aroma but are also judging the quality of ingredients and how well the product has been put together. Above all, they are truly searching for great taste!
Okay, this is big...What did we win?
And a drum roll please... We have been awarded Great Taste for 4 of our Thai curry pastes! 1-star has been awarded to our Red Thai curry paste, Panang Thai curry paste AND Massaman Thai curry paste. A 1-star rating means this product is ‘simply delicious’ (works well with our slogan, if I say so myself). The 4th award goes to our Green Thai curry paste which has won 2-stars, making it ‘above and beyond delicious’!
Although we are ecstatic with the Great Taste awards, we feel very humbled to have received all the love and support from everyone on our journey so far. This might sound cliché but we really wouldn’t be here telling this news without you. The encouragement, loyalty and shares are overwhelming.
From myself and my family, Thank you!
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