Food staples took centre stage at this year’s Irish Food Writers’ Guild Food Awards. Rachel Spillane takes a closer look at this year’s winning brands

This year’s Irish Food Writers’ Guild Food Awards was one to remember. For the first time ever, and like so many other events this year, the award ceremony and lunch were cancelled, and instead, winners were revealed online. However, it didn’t take from the amazing food, drink and business the winners have gifted us with. A lot of the awards went to food staples, food that has brought us great comfort over the turbulent year and a half, and produce that we can enjoy every day. Creamy butter, purple potatoes and rich spiced beef are a few items among the impressive list. Take a look at this year’s winners… 

1. Food Award: Abernethy Butter, Co. Down

Allison and her husband, Will Abernethy, are custodians of a near-lost tradition of handmade, hand-rolled butter in Ireland. Having begun producing Abernethy Butter around ten years ago, they have succeeded in growing Abernethy Butter into the award-winning brand it is today, with a variety of flavours as well as handmade fudge and lemon curd. This unique dairy product is made in small batches, slow-churned,  hand-rolled and shaped with wooden pats. Using Draynes Farm grass-fed, single-herd cream, which Allison and Will found to be the creamiest cream, results in the driest, best butter. Offering a variety of flavours (Dulse Butter, Black Garlic Butter, Smoked Butter, Chipotle Chilli & Smoked Paprika Butter), their unsalted and salted butters are their signature, and ‘Abernethy Gold’ should surely be added to the colour chart for that unmistakable, rich shade each roll bears. Visit abernethybutter.com. 

2. Food Award: Ballymakenny Farm Irish Heritage and Specialty Potatoes, Co. Louth

Ballymakenny Farm potatoes have become the most sought after heritage potatoes over the last few years and for good reason. Maria and David Flynn started out growing the usual potatoes for supermarket retail until Maria, unenthused by what they were doing, decided to literally inject a bit of colour into their farming by trying out the ‘purple spuds’ they have become best known for. They planted these purple Violetta potatoes along with Red Emmalies, Yukon Gold and the peculiar-shaped Pink Fir Apple potato. Ballymakenny became the most sought-after potato by high-end chefs and restaurateurs in Ireland. During COVID, with some quick thinking, the farm opened the Spud Shack, a drive-through shop on their farm which garnered plenty of attention on both social media and in the news. The success of the Spud Shack has led to an online shop to sell the spuds nationwide, which they sell out of weekly. Visit ballymakennyfarm.com

3. Food Award: Tom Durcan’s Spiced Beef, Co. Cork

Tom Durcan has been selling his traditional spiced beef at his butcher’s stall in Cork’s English Market since 1985, but the recipe he uses dates back to his teenage apprenticeship in Jim Kidney’s butcher shop in Carrigaline. Tom’s adapted recipe involves a slow cure for at least a month in a salt brine with brown sugar and saltpetre and a secret spice mix that includes pimento, cloves and cracked black pepper. It’s a lengthy and labour-intensive process requiring regular stirring of the cure to ensure absorption of all the flavours. He uses local Irish Hereford heifer beef that has been finished on maize for three months to produce particularly tender meat with good layers of fat. Durcan’s Spiced Beef can be found in stores and restaurants nationwide, including Dublin’s Chapter One restaurant, where chef-proprietor and fellow Cork man Ross Lewis is an enthusiastic champion of the tender, sweet-savoury delicacy. Visit tomdurcanmeats.ie.

4. Irish Drink Award: Kinsale Mead Wild Red Mead – Merlot Barrel Aged, Co. Cork

Kinsale Mead, established by Kate and Denis Dempsey in 2017, is Ireland’s first commercial meadery for over 200 years. Kinsale, with its long-standing reputation as Ireland’s premier gourmet destination and its historical trading routes to Spain, is reflected in the ingredients crafted into their white and red mead: Spanish orange blossom honey, local botanicals and fruits grown in Ireland. The IFWG Award is for their Wild Red Mead – Merlot Barrel-Aged, a three-year-old fermented off-dry mead flavoured with tart Irish blackberry and juicy cherry, then aged for twelve months in Bordeaux wine casks. And while 2020 was a challenging year for the duo due to the pandemic, they responded by creating virtual Online Mead Talk & Taste Zooms comprising tastings and intriguing insights into the history of mead in Ireland and the importance of mead in Irish food culture. Kinsale Mead’s Wild Red Mead – Merlot Barrel Aged showcases the creativity, innovation, determination and attention to detail put into every drop of their honeyed elixir. Visit kinsalemeadco.ie.

5. Outstanding Organisation Award: NeighbourFood, Co. Cork

NeighbourFood is an online marketplace where a range of local producers can sell what they grow, rear and create. In a ‘virtual’ farmers’ market, customers order online and then on the designated day, chosen by each host in locations countrywide, collect their order of vegetables, meat, fish, sauces, cakes, bread, condiments and ready-made meals. Started in Cork in 2018 by Jack Crotty and Martin Poucher, there are now 40 locations in Ireland and 20 in the UK, each with its own local suppliers, managed by local hosts who respond to online orders directed to them, collating each one ready for collection. Suppliers know in advance what is required of them, so there is no waste. Minimal packaging is used – another win for the environment. This award goes not just to co-founders Jack Crotty and Martin Poucher, but to NeighbourFood nationwide, from its suppliers and collection point hosts to its appreciative customers. Visit neighbourfood.ie.

6. Environmental Award: Ballymore Organics, Co. Kildare

Ballymore Organics, set up by James Kelly, was the first mill to open in Kildare since Odlum’s 200-year-old Leinster Mills closed in 1989. After growing his first organic crop of ‘smashing wheat’ in 2015, James convinced Andrew Workman of Dunany Flour to mill 20kg of the grain. Positive responses to the flour meant that James decided to build a mill on the farm and he started producing his own stoneground wholemeal flour in 2017. The single-varietal, single-origin flour is expensive to grow and mill, but James’s sales pitch was simple: he got in contact with hotels and restaurants telling the chefs about the way that he farmed and got them to try the flour. The hook was the flavour. Soon his flour was being namechecked on menus at Aimsir, Ashford Castle, Dromoland Castle and Adare Manor and James was dealing regularly with Michelin-starred chefs. With wholemeal flour selling well, James expanded his range of products to plain flour and semolina at the beginning of 2020. He also started milling the oats that he grows, becoming Ireland’s only grower and miller of both wheat flour and porridge oats. James credits COVID-19 with putting his products on the map, which have gladdened the hearts of home bakers all around Ireland over the past year. Visit ballymoreorganics.ie.

7. Community Food Award: The Green-Schools Food & Biodiversity Theme

Within the school system, we teach language with which to communicate and we teach maths with which to navigate, but we do not teach crucial skills associated with food. A two-year food education programme aims to change this for a portion of students throughout Ireland. Devised to teach children about food in an engaging and creative way, the programme was successfully piloted in eight primary schools and is now being expanded nationwide, with 45 schools joining this year and a further 65 joining next year. The programme is wide-ranging, taking an expansive, hands-on approach to education, fostering inquisitiveness about where food comes from, how it is grown and how it affects all our lives. Green-Schools provide cooking kits to all the participating schools as well as the seeds for the garden, teaching resources and ongoing support from their staff. The cooking kit provides children with the equipment to practise skills during the cooking workshops such as peeling, grating, knife safety and different chopping techniques. The programme is a welcome addition to Ireland’s food education landscape. Visit greenschoolsireland.org.

8. Lifetime Achievement Award: Marion Roeleveld, Killeen Farmhouse Cheese, Co. Galway

‘The cheesemaker’s cheesemaker’ is a good description of Marion Roeleveld. In 2004, using milk from her partner Haske’s goats, she started making Killeen Farmhouse Cheese on their 50-acre farm near Portumna, Co. Galway. The main Killeen Farmhouse Cheese production is a semi-hard goats’ cheese Gouda, made from pasteurised milk and traditional rennet and available plain or with fenugreek. A cows’ milk variety is also made, using milk supplied by a local farmer, and it comes in plain, basil and garlic, cumin seed and an Emmental style called Kilmóra. A holistic philosophy informs the whole production process and the running of the farm, where quality and traceability are paramount. They grow all the grass, hay and silage for the goats themselves and it is a closed herd. Marion’s training and all-around knowledge of farmhouse cheese production also led to her working with other producers to develop some remarkable cheeses, including Mossfield Organic; the ewes’ milk Cáis na Tíre; and most recently, the East Galway gem, Kylemore Farmhouse Cheese. Consistency and an absolute commitment to quality have led to awards a-plenty for Killeen Farmhouse Cheese, including Best Goat Cheese (twice) in the British Cheese Awards and Supreme Champion (three times) in the Irish Cheese Awards. Visit killeenfarmhousecheese.wordpress.com. 

For more visit irishfoodwritersguild.ie