What does a Great Taste Award mean?

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

judging, products, taste, people, awards, food, chocolate, day, star, organisation, producer, consumers, bit, deli, buyers, buy, delicious, stickers, run, supermarket

SPEAKERS

Jennifer Earle, Christabel Cairns

Jennifer Earle  00:00

Hello, and welcome to episode 11 of The Next Delicious Thing. I’m Jennifer Earle, a former food buyer, food developer, chocolate tour guide and Great Taste Awards judge, before I tell you the things that I have tasted, that was so delicious this week, I thought it’d be interesting to share exactly what it means to be a Great Taste Awards judge, and what the awards mean. So I am on site at the Guild of Fine Food. And I’m here to chat to Christabel Cairins, the operations and marketing director and ask her a few questions and maybe share some insights on the awards. The people inside today, judging the chilli specific awards, so yeah, I’ve had chilies already twice today, and some amazing ones from garlic peppers on avocado, I love them. But yeah, I am not keen on judging a full day of chilies. Okay, let’s go and chat to Christabel.  I am here with Christabel Cairns, the operations and marketing director of the Great Taste Awards (Guild of Fine Food), and she’s gonna give us a little bit of an inside look into – inside chat into – the Great Taste Awards. We are upstairs; there is judging happening below our feet of the chilies today.  So if you are a producer and thinking about entering products, then we might have some tips for you. And … or at least explain why it’s worthwhile. And if you are a consumer, and you’ve seen the black and gold stickers in your supermarket, and they are all over the world, predominantly in the UK, but if you see them, then you’ll have a better idea today of what they mean and why you should trust them. So thanks for joining me.  And I was judging last week, and I thought that it would be interesting to share with people because I get asked a lot about you know, how do you get to judge great day? So this is probably the question I get asked the most often. But also like, you know, how do I enter? If if people who are making products? And yeah, so just tell us the the awards. The first one was in 1994.

Christabel Cairns  02:05

So 1994 with only 250 products. So the team actually went off and bought 250 products. Oh, wow, I sat down and judge them all? How did they decide what to buy? I actually I’m not sure I think they kind of just did a cross section of products that you’d find in a independent Deli. Yeah, some cheeses and cured meats and jams, and then sort of honing the judging process since then. So everything’s blind tasted, yeah, we now taste about 40, just over 14,000 products. So we’re doing 14,205. This year, we actually have a limit on it. So we kind of say, we’ve got this many judging slots. And that’s it. It’s kind of we were a friendly, fun and friendly organisation. But we’re quite serious about the judging. So we have very particular limits to how many you can taste in a day, having palates that needs to go through. And obviously everything’s blind tasted as well.

Jennifer Earle  02:54

Yeah, I can definitely… And that’s a lot of coordination. So that means that there’s codes on everything and bottles if they need to stay in the bottle, but they’re fully wrapped up in like an olive oil, for example. And so the from 250 to 14,000. So as I understand that the first awards were judged in one day by a group of food writers and food buyers, and then now it’s done over how many months?

Christabel Cairns  03:19

It’s about three or four months. I can’t remember the exact number of judging days this year, but it’s in the 80s. 

Jennifer Earle  03:25

Wow. 

Christabel Cairns  03:26

Mainly in two venues. So here in London and down in Dorset, which is where our other offices Yeah. And then we have a couple of specialist days. So coffee actually is going on today as well in facility in Bournemouth. So we’re doing a special judging down there today. We also do tea and a couple of specialists days, so like literally day to day. And we do beer, cider,

Jennifer Earle  03:44

and spirits, right? 

Christabel Cairns  03:45

So spirits as well. Yes. 

Jennifer Earle  03:46

yes. And I keep like pushing for chocolate. But we do have the chocolate awards. So it’s I guess, not as important that chocolate should be judged separately. But yeah, it’s I think it’s great that those ones are judged, with people with experience. But quite often on individual days, you’ll have someone in the room who’s perhaps an expert in honey, or in jam, or bread or cheese, or a butcher.

Christabel Cairns  04:05

Exactly. So we actually spend quite a lot of time making sure that you’ve got a panel that has a broad range of expertise, but also a broad range of how they’re looking at the food. So we might have some chefs and food writers and buyers. And they will all come with their sort of own way of looking at an ingredient. So a chef might be looking at how they’re going to use the ingredient. The buyer might be looking at how well it was sell and whether consumers would like it. And it’s an interesting taste. And the writers obviously, you know how you might use it in a recipe or how people might use it at home. So we sort of make sure that’s quite well balanced. And then we also spend a bit of time making sure that people have a range of experience or whether that’s the length of time they’ve been in the food industry. Sometimes we muddle up, like men and women, different ages just to try and kind of represent the consumer.

Jennifer Earle  04:50

I think, yeah, that’s really important because everybody’s because so just I’ll tell you how I think the judging works. And then you can go Write my femoral. So they’re usually around eight tables in a on a judging day. And each table has between two and four people, depending on COVID restrictions as well. And the every table has a coordinator who types in the group comments and the score. And so a product is given either no stars, one star, two star or three stars. Do you want to just explain what exactly it means to have those stars? And then I’ll carry on? 

Christabel Cairns  05:27

Yeah, so if a product… so a three star just to start off with is actually really pretty hard to get. Very strangely, we don’t say there’s a criteria. So actually, everything could get three star if it was sort of the judges felt it was merited it. But every year is roughly the same amount of products that get a one two or three. And I don’t really know how that happens. But it does. So it’s around about I would say 250 products that will ended up with a three star this year, probably. 

Jennifer Earle  05:56

Yep. 

Christabel Cairns  05:57

And that really is like the whole room.

Jennifer Earle  05:59

One and a half percent?

Christabel Cairns  06:00

 Yeah. Very good maths.  Whole room agreeing it’s absolutely exceptional. It’s so you know, it’s the best apricot jam they’ve ever tasted. It’s you know, there’s, there’s no faults with the product. A one star and the other end of this. So zero star then and one star, that is a good example of product. So it might have something that you know, could be tweaked to make it even better. But it’s a you know, customer goes into a shop, they buy that they’re going to be really happy.  Two star is very close to… I hate to use the word perfection. But yeah, close to being absolutely brilliant. And then three stars is the best of the best, really,

Jennifer Earle  06:34

That sounds… So I know when I sit on the table for something to get a three star, we’re like, this is the kind of product you will go home and try and figure out what it is and tell all your friends or as soon as it comes out, you’re like: “that’s it, you all have to buy this. It’s amazing. I don’t care if you don’t like lavender or apricot or whatever. But you need to try this version.” 

Christabel Cairns  06:53

Don’t leave the shop without it. Yeah, actually just go and buy it and try it. Yeah. 

Jennifer Earle  06:56

And then yeah, two stars, like very close to that, but not quite, like, there’s something that you could you could change, or you’d definitely buy it, but maybe not be quite so evangelical about it. Yeah, yeah, it’s, um, it’s the idea as well in the feedback. So this is why I think it’s worth entering for any producer: is that the feedback is helpful and constructive, and can give specific ideas about how things can be improved, because there isn’t any criteria on who enters right? So it can be

Christabel Cairns  07:28

no, you basically have to be commercially available. There are a couple of products – types of products that are ineligible, just because either we don’t feel like we could do them justice in judging them. Or, you know, that just don’t fit with with the criteria of judging. But, on the whole, we accept food across lots of different categories. But that feedback is really important. So we’ve had producers that have either got no award, but they’ve really looked at what their feedback is and come back to win following years or products that have even gone from like a one star to a three star because they made some small tweaks. And the idea of going around the room is that you get you know, a few different opinions. And the feedback is supposed to be as constructive as possible.

Jennifer Earle  08:07

I think in that sense, it’s actually a very inexpensive way to get professional feedback on your on your products, just to give people an idea in how many palates how many people would taste the product: it’s always a minimum of two separate tables that taste everything.

Christabel Cairns  08:22

 Yeah. And they’ve got to completely agree 

Jennifer Earle  08:23

yes, that’s right. Yeah, they do have to completely agree. So if there’s a big discrepancy, and someone thinks there’s a three and someone thinks it’s a one or none, then it will go to an extra third table, for sure. But if there’s just two and those two tables agree, and that score sticks. 

Christabel Cairns  08:39

Exactly, yes. 

Jennifer Earle  08:40

And if it’s a two or three always goes to a third table…

Christabel Cairns  08:43

It always goes to, in fact, three goes to more. So for something to get to two, it needs to have got to three twos from three different tables. And for it to get a three it needs to be the majority of the room. So we look at everybody and we look at the feedback. And yeah, it’s really got to stand up for everybody. So that’s that’s a pretty big achievement if you get there.

Jennifer Earle  09:02

I’ve been lucky enough to be in judging and a couple of days with three stars. And it’s really it’s so exciting like we can do everybody who comes to judge is genuinely so in love with food, but to have the opportunity to taste something that is outstanding and share that experience with other people. It’s very special. If you love food as much as we do.  I even I think there were two or three products on one day, which was just like the bell was ringing. It was very exciting. So in that point about anyone can enter, I remember one year that it seemed like a budget supermarket sent in all their ready meals. But you’re not tasting just one category in a day. So I know this probably sounds horrible to some people but you might be going from judging a jam to a cheese, I mean, that’s not too bad, but then to meat, to a gluten free granola bar…

Christabel Cairns  09:51

Yep. Yeah, that’s that’s actually done deliberately because we don’t have a criteria so we’re not trying to find the best bit of bacon or the best marmalade. We want be able to judge things on their own merits. So really just look at the individual products. And in theory, anything that is judged, whether it’s judged at 10 o’clock in the morning, or that four o’clock in the afternoon should have the same, you know, same opportunity to win a star. So that’s that’s the thinking behind that.  We do accept some supermarket entries, but obviously, as an organisation, we, you know, we exist to support the independent retailers, we exist to support the small, smaller producers. The supermarket entries are actually a very, very small percentage. I can’t remember the exact percentage, but something something, let’s say about 5%. The majority are, yeah, independent, small and medium food producers. So … yeah, I think you’d be surprised sometimes people make great things. And you know, being big, it’s not necessarily awful. But, being small, it doesn’t necessarily mean you make amazing food. Having said that, there are some amazing products that come out of one man bands, and they are always going to be a one man or woman organisation. So it is quite interesting sometimes, because everything’s fine tasted when you realise who is behind a certain food.

Jennifer Earle  11:01

And it really is all about taste, which can be hard sometimes when you’re judging not to be influenced by how attractive or unattractive something might turn up in front of you. But the judges remind us, the coordinators remind the judges at every session that it is really all all: “How does it taste?” So is it delicious? It doesn’t have to look perfect. And you can get so surprised as well. You have things that like oh my goodness, they look really….

Christabel Cairns  11:31

Yeah, I’ve done it too. I kind of see things being unpacked and think, Oh, interesting to see how that does. And then they come back and you taste them. And they are actually amazing, or a really, I’m going to say unusual. But you know, you look at it and think on and if that combination of flavours will work, but actually, it really does. So you definitely I definitely have done it, I think about six, seven years, perhaps a bit longer. And you discover something new every year.

Jennifer Earle  11:52

Yeah, and I think that’s something that I think the awards is really valuable for because not all small companies starting with launching a food brand can afford great branding and marketing and packaging. And so to have that sticker that says this product tastes great, is a really helpful way for consumers to know which one’s are fantastic and not to be swayed by you know, beautiful branding. 

Christabel Cairns  12:16

Yeah. 

Jennifer Earle  12:16

And and for those, those companies to kind of cut through and announce that like, Yeah, I’m on a budget. So this is my this is my packaging right nownow. But this is really tastes incredible. 

Christabel Cairns  12:29

Exactly. And amazing. Branding also doesn’t necessarily always equal amazing taste. Sometimes it doesn’t. And that’s great, too. 

Jennifer Earle  12:35

how long can companies put their stickers on? Because they’ve always got a year.

Christabel Cairns  12:39

They’ve got a year? Yes, it’s valid for three years. So yeah, three years from the point of the receiving their results,

Jennifer Earle  12:45

What happens if they still have like a 2017 sticker? Do they get a cease and desist letter?

Christabel Cairns  12:51

We have a little email address. And people do contact us actually. And to be honest, I think if I was a producer, it doesn’t look great if your award feels out of date, because you sort of think Well, have you? You know, is it still good?  I mean, there have to be making it to the same recipe, but I think it doesn’t seem to the consumer people. Consumers are quite savvy about it. Yeah, I think our challenge is making people understand the one two and three star which people are starting to, but they first see the mark, and then they see…

Jennifer Earle  13:20

Yeah, I think that’s right, because there’s so many one stars like now that you’re judging 14,000 products. Yeah, approximately 25% of them get stars. That’s one stars?

Christabel Cairns  13:31

It’s about 30%. I would say a star or some kind, but yes, about 25% get one. 

Jennifer Earle  13:36

Yeah, so that’s, that’s essentially a lot of products, especially if you’re looking at a deli because generally deli buyers will kind of lean towards buying more Great Taste products. Yeah. And so, yeah, if it’s the first time you’re encountering them, you’re like, Oh, this is a great taste. And you see one star and think that that’s whereas the Academy of Chocolate or International chocolate awards will have bronze, silver and gold, which is kind of obvious on seeing:  third place, or a bit of a tier rather than a single star, which might be the top award if that’s the only one you’re seeing. And then there’s a top 50 products overall. And then you get specific ones for regions. And? Yeah, we actually don’t do… we did do the top 50. But we now leave it as just the three stars because we felt that they all 200 Yes, you know, 250 are worth shouting about and you know, to have got that, to be honest to have got to a two star is pretty amazing.  Yeah. And there’s the regional ones now.

Christabel Cairns  14:29

Regional ones. Yes. So we have a regional winner from the Southwest, Southeast, London, etc.  And a single product?  And one single product, which is the supreme champion. 

Jennifer Earle  14:38

That must be really difficult to judge just a single product across everything.

Christabel Cairns  14:42

yeah, you’ve kind of gone from 14,000 to 250 to about 16. We get into a final round and then we do do some 

Jennifer Earle  14:49

Does it get quite heated? 

Christabel Cairns  14:50

It does and we judge it a bit like a sort of talent show. We have judges holding up scores and it’s all quite exciting.

Jennifer Earle  14:56

Oh really! So you have people like coming to bat for products and this is my pitch why it’s the best?

Christabel Cairns  15:03

Not quite like that. They will score out of seven. And they can’t actually see each other scoring. So they’re all facing the front and they hold up their numbers. And no one quite knows which one has won because we don’t announce the final score. So we’ll take the tallies and then wait until the Golden Forks in September,

Jennifer Earle  15:19

Which is a gala evening for all the all of the people who got three stars.

Christabel Cairns  15:26

Celebration, yeah. I’s a celebration of the people who are so nominated and up for winning a Golden fork. And we’re going to do it until that cathedral. 

Jennifer Earle  15:37

Wow. Yeah. Very exciting. That would be amazing. It’s not just the UK now. So it’s started very much as just British products. But now … we’ve definitely seen products from overseas as a judge, so, what percentage would you say is…? 

Christabel Cairns  15:51

I think it’s probably about 25%. now. So it’s been slowly increasing over the last few years. We used to be about 20% 80%. And I think now about 75% coming from the UK and Ireland, and then about 25%. from overseas, We actually get  products from about 106 countries that are entered.

Jennifer Earle  16:08

So Wow. And are they interested in selling in the UK? Or is it just because they value the brand, and they think that it will like…

Christabel Cairns  16:16

It’s a mixture, to be honest, a lot of them actually value it in their own region. So I’ve had people telling me in California, they’ve seen the stickers in delis in Singapore, they’ve seen the stickers. So it’s starting to have this kind of worldwide, you know, within reason worldwide reach. So people definitely recognise it.

Jennifer Earle  16:34

I mean, it looks great, it doesn’t really matter if you know who gave it, or whatever, but to see to see just the words Great Taste, and a star, like it kind of implies that someone else decided this rather than the company that it’s “the best”. And especially then if people don’t understand it, well, the star system probably works well in their favour. Because consumers see just a Great Taste and the star. And that’s, as best as they know, is that could be the highest it could possibly get.

Christabel Cairns  17:01

Interestingly, that’s why it started in the first place. So in the 90s, it was started as a bit of an antidote to the supermarket saying “this tastes the best”, or that kind of thing. So it was supposed to be a bit more of a … I’m going to say scientific but, you know, making something that could be quite subjective, as objective as possible with real evidence behind it that people have tried it. 

Jennifer Earle  17:22

And independence as well. 

Christabel Cairns  17:23

Yeah, exactly. We don’t, we don’t get involved in trying it. If somebody doesn’t like it fine. If they love it, fine. That’s what you know, judges are there for.

Jennifer Earle  17:31

And that’s quite, it’s different. I think, from the quality food Awards, which are much more supermarket own label products that the quality food award would assess from my experience, rather than brands. So Great Taste is much more about the independents than the Quality Awards.

Christabel Cairns  17:46

Yes,  I’m not that familiar with them. But as an organisation, that’s what we stand for. So the idea is to try and help help delis find good products and help consumers to buy them. And the guild of vendors had started as a as a journal right? A food industry journal. Is this – the awards – now the main part of the business? It’s about half and half. So the publishing side is still very much there. We have fine food digests which exists as a magazine for retailers. And then the awards. We also do training programmes, we act as a trade organisation. So we’ll lobby the government or we’ll try and answer questions for people. We have the slightly, I guess, drier, but equally important side, which is we produce a guide called the Deli Code of Practice for people to use and help them sort of deal with DHO, so we’ve sort of a few different things. 

Jennifer Earle  18:36

That’s really interesting. And you said it’s a small team.?

Christabel Cairns  18:39

It’s about 15 of us. 

Jennifer Earle  18:40

Yeah. And quite a few of them are related to one another?

Christabel Cairns  18:43

Yes, yeah. Family owned business. So yeah. And we also have in two offices in London, and Dorset. So we, we sort of, I guess we’ve got our fingers in a lot of pies. But we’re kind of … It keeps us busy. And yeah, totally varied.

Jennifer Earle  18:54

You need a team of 15 to do all those things, because it required some specialist skills.  So if you are a producer, then you can… there’s a membership where you can get support with all things producing food as well. Right?

Christabel Cairns  19:07

Exactly Yeah. So you can be a retailer or producer and be a member of a guild to find food, and all our membership fees and actually entry into the awards is tiered. So if you’re a smaller company, and your revenue is lower then you pay one fee, and if you’re bigger, you pay a slightly bigger fee. So the idea is that we’re sort of making it as fair as we can. 

Jennifer Earle  19:25

And inclusive.

Christabel Cairns  19:26

Yeah, exactly. And that membership will help you with anything from dealing with DHO’s, it gives you discount on things like Great Taste entry, and we act a bit like a signposting organisation. So if we can’t answer a question for you, we will try and point you in the direction of somebody who can. 

Jennifer Earle  19:41

I love that. That’s very cool. Very modern, multiple streams of income, but also just genuinely very helpful for people who are a small food business starting out. And bigger ones as well.  And so what about you personally? Is there anything you’ve seen over the years that you find fascinating or just like trends that you’ve seen in food that has kind of surprised you or just, you know, worth noting?

Christabel Cairns  20:05

Yeah, I think it is interesting because we see all these products come in and we sort of think oh, yeah, you know. A few years ago, one of the obvious ones, for me was Kombucha, I’d sort of come across it, but I didn’t really know what it was, you know, this is going back a bit. And the judges, some judges knew what it was. Now everyone knows what Kombucha is. And every deli and Cornershop has a few, but you forget that we actually see because of this sort of data, if you like that we get in love a spreadsheet, we see quite a lot of sort of trends, almost before they’re happening, or as they’re happening. Yeah, so fermented foods has been a big one.  I think the quality of some of the sort of free from alternative products has been amazing, like, you know, there used to be entered. And that was, that was the selling point that they were free from now, it’s now judged alongside everything else, the taste is equally as good.

Jennifer Earle  20:57

I’ve definitely noticed that just as, like, I’ve been through industry for 15 years as buyer and tour guide and so on. It used to be such a compromise to have gluten free or vegan. And now, now, you

Christabel Cairns  21:11

People are quite offended if if we say, say if a judge says that is “good for gluten free”. We have to say actually, do you know what? Can you judge it properly?

Jennifer Earle  21:19

Do you have a favourite products that stands out?

Christabel Cairns  21:24

I think I have several. I always really like it when you discover something you didn’t think you not necessarily would like, but you just wouldn’t have picked accent off. So obviously, very lucky position. We see lots of things and have a lot of opportunities to try things. I’m trying to think

Jennifer Earle  21:39

Your job is a dream job, like judging is amazing, but…

Christabel Cairns  21:42

You have to be quite careful. You can end up quite a different size at the end of three months.

Jennifer Earle  21:46

Yeah, but if you’re just like, I’m just gonna eat this three star stuff… Ah…

Christabel Cairns  21:52

I think it’s exciting. You, you know, a lot of the time we’re behind the scenes, but you can tell when the judges or the team are getting excited about something and they’ll actually bring it in and be like, Guys, you have to try this. And that’s, that’s really exciting. 

Jennifer Earle  22:04

Can you think of a particular example? 

Christabel Cairns  22:07

I think like a few things. A few years ago, we had a supreme champion that was a smoked black pudding. That was really interesting, because it’s quite a traditional product, but kind of different take on a traditional product. I think there’s been the odd spirit that’s interesting. Someone has made an unusual flavour combination. And it’s just coming across the things that you wouldn’t necessarily have at home or pick up off the shelf.

Jennifer Earle  22:31

I love that about judging: having some of the products that you’re like, Oh, wow. Like, I wouldn’t buy this, but I would now. 

Christabel Cairns  22:37

Yeah, exactly. 

Jennifer Earle  22:38

It’s nice coming in and know you’re not just judging one thing. It makes it a lot easier to judge as well, if you’re not just trying a whole load of cheeses or chocolate or whatever, having it mixed up.  As judges, you get a large amount of the food that you’ll be judging for the session on the table. And you can choose the order. So you can decide if you’re like, Okay, well, after we’ve had chilli perhaps we’ll try bread or jam, rather than something that might be a little bit more subtle. And then if they’re ice creams or hot food, then they kind of take precedence when they arrive at the table.  So okay, this has been really interesting. Thank you. And if people have questions, then I will link in the shownotes. And in the comment if you’re watching on YouTube, so that you can find the Great Taste Awards or the Guild of Fine Food website, which will link to the Great Taste Awards and everything else that we’ve discussed. When do the results come out?

Christabel Cairns  23:32

So they’re out in the first of August. Yeah, it is pretty quick turnaround. So we’ll finish judging mid June and just make sure everything’s everything’s ready to go. And then everybody will get their results that day. So they’ll get the feedback and the scores. And later on in the afternoon the public facing website goes live as well.

Jennifer Earle  23:48

There’s no limit to how many products people can enter?

Christabel Cairns  23:51

No, we used to have limit of about 50. But it’s yeah, it’s most people are entering just a handful to be honest. So it’s probably worth mentioning that, when public facing website comes out, we now have stockists on there as well. So producers, it’s part of their entry process, but they can actually update it at any time between when they enter and actually, after the results come out as well. So they can put links to delis and food shops that they have sold in. So then it’s all helpful to people wanting to know where to buy products.

Jennifer Earle  24:18

And do you see a big shift for people when they get awards like in their business?

Christabel Cairns  24:23

Yeah, it’s hard to tell, but anecdotally, it’s up to about 20% increase in sales. And I know that some of the food producers like food hall buyers, and lots of delis, they wait for the results to come out and then we get asked, you know, “have you got a … Can you recommend a particular type of product for our shelves?”

Jennifer Earle  24:41

 Yeah, you’re really making the deli’s job much easier.

Christabel Cairns  24:43

Well, yes. So and then we have Great Taste book which comes up later in the year as well, which everyone’s got a photo how to use the product and buyers look at that really closely. 

Jennifer Earle  24:54So in short, if you are a consumer, look out for the Great Taste Award stickers. The look like this.  With a star. And if you are a buyer or a producer, more importantly a producer, then you should definitely enter because the feedback is really invaluable. I think. Super, this has been really interesting. I think everybody else will think so as well. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. And I’ll be back shortly to tell you what I’ve eaten this week that I think you need to taste.