Here at Dorset Food and Drink, we’re celebrating Dorset’s food producers and our members for their amazing achievements at this year’s Dorset Food, Drink and Farming Magazine Awards where many of our favourite food producers were honoured in a huge array of categories.
Arguably the big winners of the night were the team at Chococo, who not got Highly Commended for Entrepreneur of the Year, they were also named as the Food and Drink Farming Heros of the Year! Congratulations to Claire and Andy!
Chococo weren’t the only ones to represent Dorset Food and Drink members in the Entrepreneur of the Year category, the overall winner was Sarah Ali Choudhury at Gourmet Indian Catering . Ryan Howell at the Dorset Donut Company and Keri Astill-Frew at V-Dorset were also both named as Highly Commended.
BearKat in Bridport received Highly Commended in the Best Tea/Coffee shop of Year and Steepton Bill Farm Shop in Blandford Forum was named as joint winners of the Customer Service award.
Here at Dorset Food and Drink, we love to champion independent businesses, so it was great to see two of our members featured in the Best Independent Retailer category this year. The overall winner was Gulliver’s Farm Shop and The Wobbly Cottage was named as one of the Highly Commended businesses.
In the Food Producer of the Year category, Meggy Moos took the winner’s spot, with Book and Bucket Cheese receiving Highly Commended. Well done, guys! The winner of Drinks Product of the Year was the Montagu Cuvee made by the Mapperton Estate, with Dorset Ginger getting a Highly Commended.
We can’t talk about drinks without mentioning pubs, so congratulations to The Royal Oak in Cerne Abbas who took away Best Dorset Pub 2019!
La Fosse at Cranborne was named as Highly Commended for Best Formal Dining Experience, Taste Cafe at Chesil Beach received Highly Commended for Best Informal Dining Experience and The White Post‘s Brett Sutton was named as Chef of the Year.
Of course one of the big focuses for many of the region’s food producers is being environmentally friendly. This year’s Eco Champion was named as BeeWrapUK with Anna’s Ice Lollies receiving Highly Commended.
Congratulations to all the winners and nominees of this year’s awards! To see a full list of the winners, please click here.
