At half way through 2022, it's heart warming to hear that our farmhouse cheeses are being praised and receiving awards. 

ASDA Supplier Sustainability Exchange Awards

In April, ASDA held their Supplier Sustainability Exchange Awards. This was our first award of 2022, and what a humbling one it was. We have been recognised for our "exemplary achievements in reducing waste through innovation" in the Waste and Plastics category of their awards. 

Virtual Cheese Awards

The Virtual Cheese Awards is now in its third year.

We love this award set up, completely online and accessible for everyone in the cheese industry. It's so inclusive with a wide range of expert judges, that it was a huge achievement for our Red Leicester's to be recognised. 

Rothbury Red won its category for Traditional Red Leicester and Smouldering Ember won its category for Smoked Cheese. 

We're thrilled with the feedback and comments from the judges, who had the tricky tasks of whittling down thousands of entries to 30 for the final live judging. 

Friday 13th May, was another great judging day, with more fantastic feedback. Well done to Keen's Cheddar for pipping Rothbury Red and Smouldering Ember to the post. 

International Cheese Awards

The International Cheese Awards was held at Staffordshire Showground again this year after spending over 120 years in Nantwich. 

We're super proud to have won a total of 5 Trophies, 15 Gold awards, 3 Silver awards and 5 Bronze awards across our hard, soft and blue cheeses.

The stars of our awards were:

 G.O.A.T Cheeseboard for 'Best Packaging' and 'The David Dunn Memorial Trophy' for the best cheeseboard display. 

Blacksticks Blue for it's recognition in 'Best Blue Cheese' and 'Cheese Loves Trophy' (the latter was judged by celebrity chef Marco Pierre White! 

Our This is Proper range was also a stand out to judges for 'Best Branded Packaging'. 

Goosnargh Gold, which won Supreme Champion in 1998, also won a gold award this year for it's class. We're over the moon that the recipe is unchanged, and is still giving the judges' taste buds a party. 

Great Yorkshire Show

Man, it was good to be back at largest agricultural show of the year, The Great Yorkshire Show.

This year cheese entries took centre stage in the 'Food Hall' with a vast range of regional and further afield cheeses on the tables to be judged. 

We are delighted that the judges have once again award us a range of Gold, Silver and Bronze awards across our range of hard, soft and blue cheese. 

Beacon Blue once again wowed the judges, with them awarding it a Gold award for Blue cheese. The comments from the judges were lovely too... "light &clean with a meadowy sweetness" and "full but subtle flavour". 

Great Taste Awards

This years Guild of Fine Food judges certainly had, well, great taste! 

With thousands of entries each year, the Great Taste Award, is only given to around a quarter of entries. You know as soon as you see the logo on a food or drink, it one of high stature. 

Beacon Blue and Sunday Best have only gone an won 2 stars each... in the Great Taste terms this means they are "outstanding".

The judges sent us some amazing feedback, which we could not agree more with. See below ⬇

Sunday Best:

"Beautiful, pale ivory, cream colour.  Cuts well, good curd distribution Crumbles in a manner as you would expect of a cheese of this quality. Good balance of moisture and dryness to give correct structure."

"A very fine traditional cheese with a moreishly crumbly texture and attractive light golden colour. We enjoyed the bright sharpness and acidity and were impressed with the length of flavour which included a little bitterness and plenty of salt. There is a lovely, lively tang to this cheese."

"On tasting there a layers of flavour, the gentle acidity, the salt, the creaminess and the clean taste of an exceedingly good Lancashire. The flavour keeps on developing and reaches your ears along the jawline, making the taste buds tingle! This is so good we had to go back for more. Now that's a sure sign of a winner! It is a lovely cheese indeed and worthy of a high award."

Beacon Blue:

"What a majestic-looking cheese. It looks so inviting with its ribs of blue through the creamy white, lightly crumbly paste. It has a mildly goaty aroma with the blue tingling the nose. On tasting it is smooth and creamy, but slightly spongy in texture, with the blue not dominating the gentle goatiness but it develops on the tongue with the perfect level of salt in harmony with the very gentle ammonia from the blue. This is an introductory level for goats' cheese for people who love Cheddar as it has such a delicious texture and not too heavy on the goat! We could go on eating this all day - it is a fabulous cheese."

"A beautiful looking cheese, a creamy goat character and the 'blue' element evident but at just the right level sitting behind the goat flavour and not dominating, smooth and well balanced, a really well made cheese."

"An incredibly attractive looking cheese with a fresh aroma and no hints of ammonia on the mould. The moulding throughout is even and bright. The texture is beautifully substantial, filling your mouth with creamy tones with light Goat notes. It's fresh and clean. We loved this - there is a gradual build of salt on the finish which we feel is a tad too much. However, this is a fabulous cheese and very worthy."

British Cheese Awards

The British Cheese Awards returned on 5th October at Bath and West Showground as part of The Dairy Show. 

The Dairy Show brought farm to fork to life, with cow's, goat's and sheep being shown in one area and the awards taking place in the next. 

It was great to see a good variety in each category for the judges to go through. 

We're super pleased to have come away from these awards with 1 Gold, 1 Silver and 3 Bronze. 

We could not be happier with the awards so far in 2022. Let's see what the rest of 2022 has to offer!