Remember, a simple message in these unusual times….
eat well, support local producers and buy Irish food

We are delighted to be working with Donegal LEO to support this year’s Best in Donegal.

“Over the years, Donegal food businesses have enjoyed great success at Blas na hÉireann, the Irish Food Awards, and it’s a great celebration of the best in the business,” said Michael Tunney, Head of Enterprise Donegal. “Developing the Donegal food story is a key focus for Local Enterprise Office Donegal and our Food Coast Donegal initiative aims to support, celebrate and grow the food sector in the county. Donegal benefits from an abundance of locally sourced ingredients, from the finest fish and meats to fresh homegrown vegetables. It’s an exciting time for food in the county and while we’ve always been known for our stunning landscape now the food that comes from that landscape is getting the recognition it deserves. Feedback from staycationers last summer consistently mentioned the quality and value of the Donegal food experience and we look forward to building on that tradition.”

This year, as always, every entry will be eligible for the Best in County award, which is awarded to the highest scoring product from that county.

Donegal winners and finalists in 2020 included Aran Ard Teo, Atlantic Treasures, Donegal Rapeseed, Filligans, Green pastures, The Shack & Wild Fischia bakehouse. You can find more details on finalists & winners here

“The last 12 months have been like no other in the history of Blas na hÉireann,” says Chairman Artie Clifford. “We could never have imagined what lay ahead when we launched last year’s awards. It is testament to our team, our partners in UCC, IT Tralee and TU Dublin, our sponsors, the resilience and innovation of our amazing producers and our wider Blas community that we were able to announce our 2020 winners in a virtual celebration last October. It is with this experience under our belt that we can confidently launch Blas 2021 – knowing that no matter what, we will celebrate the very finest Irish food and drink in the best way possible.”

These are exceptionally rigorously-judged awards, as Blas na hÉireann use an innovative blind-tasting judging system developed by Blas with the Food Science Dept of UCC and the University of Copenhagen that is now recognised as an industry gold standard worldwide. Last year, these systems were successfully moved from the campus in UCC to Dingle to work within constraints of lockdown and travel restrictions.

“2020 was an incredibly difficult year,” says Blas na hÉireann Chairman Artie Clifford. “With businesses pushed to the brink, the closure of the hospitality sector left many producers without some of their key accounts. However, with many producers pivoting their business quickly and the general public getting far more interested in the quality of the food in their basket and on their plate, there were deep ties made between communities and their local producers. Our goal is to build on this and ensure that when restaurants reopen, the ties made between the public and these products remains.

So whether a new business has flourished over the past 12 months or an existing product is being used in a brand new way, a Blas na hÉireann gold stamp of approval could see it reach new heights and, most importantly, new customers.

You can watch a video of our 2020 judging here 
2020 – Response to challenges & restrictions, how we judged

Find out more about the awards & enter online

2021 Press Coverage

Donegal Democrat – 23rd April 2021

We are looking for your local heroes! The person or people you feel are doing the most to promote and support Irish food for our ‘Producers Champion Award’

Since 2014, a champion of Irish food has been voted for by producers and past winners include Neven Maguire, John & Sally McKenna, Shane McArdle and Jess Murphy. In 2020 Innovators, educators and Irish food ambassadors, Darina Allen, Rory O’Connell and Rachel Allen were voted Blas na hÉireann 2020 Producers’ Champions. 

Over the past year we have seen just how important local support is, this year we are asking you to let us know who you think should be recognised. 

You can name anyone (person or people) who is working hard on behalf of Irish food, particularly on the ground supporting producers locally. They can be the unsung heroes of the food industry, members of your local community or an inspirational chef. We want to know who is important to food producers across the country and why.

It just takes a minute to complete the form, once you know who you would like to nominate (you can nominate up to 3)

Make your suggestions

Clodagh Kerry, Placement Manager in UCC for the BSc Food Science https://www.ucc.ie/en/ck505/ and BSc Nutritional Science https://www.ucc.ie/en/ck504/ has been in touch with us.

Clodagh is currently seeking placement opportunities from the 22^nd March until the end of August.

For more details you can contact Clodagh Kerry on 086 8532060.

Clodagh Kerr, Work Placement Manager
c.kerr@ucc.ie

Rosemary from Tullahay Farm featured in Irish Country Living magazine

Upcoming Ask Me Anything with Retail Buyer Malachy O’Connor is now live for registration here

Taste4Success – new course for microbreweries, training in place – Registration here

Lots of you have asked about a mini treat box and we are delighted to let you know that you can now order a Little Blas Box, a little treat of coffee and handmade chocolates from 2 of this year’s Gold Award winners. The little parcel of treats includes Velo Coffee from Cork and Clotilde’s Handmade Boozy Truffles from Co. Sligo. The little Blas Box is €20 which includes postage to anywhere in Ireland

Update – these have now sold out

Find out more about Blas Boxes here

One of the important elements of the awards is the beautiful glass from Dingle Crystal. Although we won’t be gathered together this year to present the glass to our winners we want to be sure that every winner for this year receives their award despite us not gathering together for the presentation.

For our winners, we are working to arrange to have the awards available for pick up in their county from the Monday following the awards.
This will differ county by county.

Bank of Ireland, our partners in The Blas Backyard have kindly offered to host the collection in their local branches, see current confirmed list below.

This will allow a few things;

Firstly, a space which is safe and accessible for collection

Secondly, we will be working with local press in each county to arrange to have a photo opportunity to capture the moment when a winning producer collects their award. It will present for our winners, where we can, an opportunity to have a presentation photograph taken.

Please note that some details are still being confirmed so check back here for final details

Please note on the times listed below – This is an ideal time to collect as local press has been invited at this time. You do not have to collect at this time, you can collect at a time that suits you, within the branch opening hours

Antrim	TBC	Awards will be co-ordinated with Invest NI
Armagh	TBC	Awards will be co-ordinated with Invest NI
Bray	Wednesday 7th @ 11am	Bank of Ireland Bray
CARLOW	Tuesday 6th @ 3pm	Bank of Ireland Carlow
CAVAN	Monday 5th @ 11am	Bank of Ireland Cavan
CLARE	Tuesday 6th @10. 30am	Bank of Ireland Ennis
Cork – Bandon	Tuesday 6th @ 2.30pm	Bank of Ireland Bandon
Cork – Clonakilty	Tuesday 6th @ 1.30pm	Bank of Ireland Clonakilty
Cork – Fermoy	Tuesday 6th @ 11am	Bank of Ireland Fermoy
Cork – Midleton	Wednesday 7th @ 11.30am	Bank of Ireland Midleton
Cork – Patrick St	Staggered times to be advised	Bank of Ireland Patrick’s St
Derry	TBC	Awards will be co-ordinated with Invest NI
DONEGAL		Awards will be delivered to winners with An Post
Down	TBC	Awards will be co-ordinated with Invest NI
Dublin		Awards will be delivered to winners with An Post
Fermanagh	TBC	Awards will be co-ordinated with Invest NI
GALWAY	Monday 5th @ 2pm	Bank of Ireland Eyre Square
KERRY	Monday 5th @ 11.30	Bank of Ireland Killarney
KILDARE	Monday 5th @12.30pm	Bank of Ireland Naas
KILKENNY	Tuesday 6th @ 10.30am	Bank of Ireland Kilenny
LAOIS	Wednesday 7th @ 12.30pm	Bank of Ireland Portlaois
LEITRIM	Monday 5th @ 1.30pm	Bank of Ireland Carrick-on-Shannon
LIMERICK	Tuesday 6th @ 11.30am	Bank of Ireland O’Connell St
LONGFORD	Monday 5th @ 2.30pm	Bank of Ireland Longford
LOUTH	Wednesday 7th @ 1pm	Bank of Ireland Drogheda (Laurence St)
MAYO	Wednesday 7th @ 1.30pm	Bank of Ireland Castlebar
MEATH	Wednesday 7th @ 2pm	Bank of Ireland Trim
MONAGHAN	Tuesday 6th @ 2pm	Bank of Ireland Monaghan
OFFALY	Tuesday 6th @ 2.30pm	Bank of Ireland Tullamore
ROSCOMMON	Wednesday 7th @ 2.30pm	Bank of Ireland Roscommon
SLIGO	Wednesdau 7th @ 3pm	Bank of Ireland Sligo
TIPPERARY	Monday 5th @ 3pm	Bank of Ireland Clonmel
Tyrone	TBC	Awards will be co-ordinated with Invest NI
WATERFORD	Tuesday 6th @ 12noon	Bank of Ireland Waterford (Quay’s)
WESTMEATH	Monday 5th @ 12noon	Bank of Ireland Mullingar
WEXFORD	Wednesday 7th @ 10.30am	Bank of Ireland Wexford

Note: March 2021
Below are the details of how the awards took place in 2020 with an update issued to all producers in August 2020. At the time it seemed like the most unique of circumstances, now, in March 2021, we know that we have a system in place which has been tried and tested to work within guidelines.

Published August 2020: Our team have been working tirelessly since March to make sure that Blas 2020 goes ahead and that we maintain our commitment to celebrating the very best in Irish food and drink. We feel that now, more than ever it is essential to shine a spotlight and give that all important clap on the back to the talented producers dotted around the island.

The event in Dingle will not take place this year as the safety of our team, our incredible volunteers from UCC, CIT, GMIT, IT Tralee and TU Dublin, our judges and our community here in Dingle is our top priority.

Throughout this year we have carefully watched the evolving situation and while we have always hoped to bring everyone together we have also planned for alternative arrangements.

As always, we have done everything with producers in mind.

Judging

Our summer judging has now taken place. Faced with the restrictions around college campuses still in place and under the watchful eye of our academic director Professor Joe Kerry of UCC we relocated our judging to Dingle, ensuring the judging was handled with the same care and attention as always.

We had hoped to have a finalist judging take place in Dingle in early October as per previous years and while we hoped for this we planned for restrictions to remain in place.

After the initial first round of judging we put the top scoring products from a number of categories through a second round of tasting, both in Dingle and at satellite venues across the country. In conjunction with UCC we studied these results and found that our results based on two entirely separate panels returned the same rankings.

The Blas na hÉireann 2020 results will be based on our summer judging sessions and will be announced as follows;

Producers will be notified by email, as always, if they have reached the finalist stage. These emails will be sent in the coming days and, as always, every producer who has taken part will receive an update on their entry.

Those in the finalist stage can promote their achievements between now and the awards being announced in October.

The awards will be announced online on Saturday 3^rd October.

October – Producer Showcase, The Backyard and Awards

We are proud of the Blas na hEireann events we have created in Dingle each year in October and the visibility these give to producers over the course of the weekend. We know that they are an important part of the Blas experience.

The Blas Producer Showcase, while we may not be able to recreate the physical shop floor display we will be working to put the spotlight on each producer and their finalist products, bringing them to the attention of the buyers in an alternative format.

Due to the success of our virtual Backyard events in April, and the fact that the Backyard has become a very important aspect of the Blas weekend, we plan to facilitate a series of Backyard events online this year and we will work on an exciting and informative programme that reflects the times we are living in and the specific challenges producers and buyers are facing. 

More details will be announced in the coming weeks.

For the awards themselves, we will be announcing the winners over the course of the day on October 3^rd on our website and social media channels and while we will miss gathering collectively to cheer on colleagues and friends, we will make up for it by ensuring that #Blas2020 trends all day!

And we would ask that everyone get involved in the online celebration. 

We did not make this decision lightly and we are confident that we have made the correct call by cancelling the Blas na hEireann events in October. We hope you understand and support the new format that we have developed to ensure that the Blas na hÉireann 2020 awards are announced and celebrated.

Please get in touch with us if you have questions. You can reach Fallon or Artie by phone on the numbers below or by email on info@irishfoodawards.com

Fallon — 087 9029329

Artie — 087 2026420

Find more details on finalist info here

Are you passionate about developing a food business?

UCC are now taking applications for the next cycle of UCC’s part-time Diploma in Speciality Food Production.

Past participants have described this course as invaluable and would strongly recommend it to those starting or developing artisan and speciality food businesses. Many graduates have gone on to develop successful food enterprises.

The diploma starts in October 2020 and will run on a part-time basis until May 2021. The programme is typically delivered over two days, every three weeks, and consists of lectures in conjunction with practical’s, case studies, site visits and workshops. NOTE: Due to current COVID 19 restrictions, it may be necessary to deliver part, or all of entire programme using a suite of on-line tools.

The fee for the diploma is €2800 and funding (64% of the fee) is available for eligible applicants.

An application form and more information can be obtained from Dr Angela Sheehan, Programme Manager, a.sheehan@ucc.ie or by visiting www.ucc.ie/en/fitu.

We at Blas na hÉireann fully support the decision by The Dingle Food Festival to cancel this year’s event, it is important to consider the safety of the community and the many festival-goers who visit Dingle each October.
You can find more details from The Dingle Food Festival here.

In the Blas office, since March we have been monitoring the situation closely and working tirelessly in the background to ensure that the awards go ahead, albeit in a new format.

The events will not take place in Dingle. We will be announcing the awards in a new format and continue to create maximum impact for our finalists with exposure to buyers and press, finding new ways of connecting and networking.

We are in the final stages of our new 2020 plan and will share all the details in the coming days. Rest assured, we will be announcing a Blas Class of 2020 in October

You can find more details on current judging here

Questions? You can reach us on info@irishfoodawards.com